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Sygerrik the 'deceiver', King Beyond the Wall.


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A Clash of Kings - Jon VI

"Well, long before he was king over the free folk, Bael was a great raider."
Stonesnake gave a snort. "A murderer, robber, and raper, is what you mean."
"That's all in where you're standing too," Ygritte said. "The Stark in Winterfell wanted Bael's head, but never could take him, and the taste o' failure galled him. One day in his bitterness he called Bael a craven who preyed only on the weak. When word o' that got back, Bael vowed to teach the lord a lesson. So he scaled the Wall, skipped down the kingsroad, and walked into Winterfell one winter's night with harp in hand, naming himself Sygerrik of Skagos. Sygerrik means 'deceiver' in the Old Tongue, that the First Men spoke, and the giants still speak."
 
"North or south, singers always find a ready welcome, so Bael ate at Lord Stark's own table, and played for the lord in his high seat until half the night was gone. The old songs he played, and new ones he'd made himself, and he played and sang so well that when he was done, the lord offered to let him name his own reward. 'All I ask is a flower,' Bael answered, 'the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o' Winterfell.'"
"Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. So the Stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o' the winter roses be plucked for the singer's payment. And so it was done. But when morning come, the singer had vanished . . . and so had Lord Brandon's maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain."
Jon had never heard this tale before. "Which Brandon was this supposed to be? Brandon the Builder lived in the Age of Heroes, thousands of years before Bael. There was Brandon the Burner and his father Brandon the Shipwright, but—"
"This was Brandon the Daughterless," Ygritte said sharply. "Would you hear the tale, or no?"
He scowled. "Go on."

"Lord Brandon had no other children. At his behest, the black crows flew forth from their castles in the hundreds, but nowhere could they find any sign o' Bael or this maid. For most a year they searched, till the lord lost heart and took to his bed, and it seemed as though the line o' Starks was at its end. But one night as he lay waiting to die, Lord Brandon heard a child's cry. He followed the sound and found his daughter back in her bedchamber, asleep with a babe at her breast."

"Bael had brought her back?"
"No. They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneath the castle. The maid loved Bael so dearly she bore him a son, the song says . . . though if truth be told, all the maids love Bael in them songs he wrote. Be that as it may, what's certain is that Bael left the child in payment for the rose he'd plucked unasked, and that the boy grew to be the next Lord Stark. So there it is—you have Bael's blood in you, same as me."
"It never happened," Jon said.
She shrugged. "Might be it did, might be it didn't. It is a good song, though. My mother used to sing it to me. She was a woman too, Jon Snow. Like yours." She rubbed her throat where his dirk had cut her. "The song ends when they find the babe, but there is a darker end to the story. Thirty years later, when Bael was King-beyond-the-Wall and led the free folk south, it was young Lord Stark who met him at the Frozen Ford . . . and killed him, for Bael would not harm his own son when they met sword to sword."
"So the son slew the father instead," said Jon.

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
Jon is told a specific legend, that pertains to his plot line. Of a King Beyond the Wall, presenting a blue rose, and stealing a Stark girl. While hiding in the crypts and giving birth to a child. This is thematically important in contrast to Daenerys, born in the south, in the Tower of Joy. Who is the Star/Sword of the Morning. Hightower being a symbol of the high burning star that she her self represents. Jon, is not born up high, but down low, deep in the earth. In the Crypts. The Blue rose in the wall.
 
So who is the King Beyond the Wall that would be Jon's father? Mance Rayder, who was the black brother at Harrenhal who presented a rose through Rhaegar (Who probably did not realize what it meant, or how it made him the guilty looking culprit) for Sygerrik the deceiver had just tricked him. Then kidnapped Lyanna, killing a Baratheon and Lannister soldier or family member while escaping to the North where she gave birth. Where Benjen possibly knew, and why he took the black.
     Rhaegar ran off south with Ashara. Where she gave birth to Daenerys, who remembers Lemon Trees, and who's brother is engaged to the Dornish. Who's brothers memory of leaving for Dragon Stone differs from Jamies. Lets unpack this.
 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Bran II

"That evening there was to be a feast in Harrenhal, to mark the opening of the tourney, and the she-wolf insisted that the lad attend. He was of high birth, with as much a right to a place on the bench as any other man. She was not easy to refuse, this wolf maid, so he let the young pup find him garb suitable to a king's feast, and went up to the great castle.
"Under Harren's roof he ate and drank with the wolves, and many of their sworn swords besides, barrowdown men and moose and bears and mermen. The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle, but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head. A black brother spoke, asking the knights to join the Night's Watch. The storm lord drank down the knight of skulls and kisses in a wine-cup war. The crannogman saw a maid with laughing purple eyes dance with a white sword, a red snake, and the lord of griffins, and lastly with the quiet wolf . . . but only after the wild wolf spoke to her on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench.
"Amidst all this merriment, the little crannogman spied the three squires who'd attacked him. One served a pitchfork knight, one a porcupine, while the last attended a knight with two towers on his surcoat, a sigil all crannogmen know well."

 

 
 
So we are told there was a Black brother at Harrenhal when Meera tells Bran of the story. This is Mance Rayder
 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Jon I

"A cloak?"
"The black wool cloak of a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch," said the King-beyond-the-Wall. "One day on a ranging we brought down a fine big elk. We were skinning it when the smell of blood drew a shadow-cat out of its lair. I drove it off, but not before it shredded my cloak to ribbons. Do you see? Here, here, and here?" He chuckled. "It shredded my arm and back as well, and I bled worse than the elk. My brothers feared I might die before they got me back to Maester Mullin at the Shadow Tower, so they carried me to a wildling village where we knew an old wisewoman did some healing. She was dead, as it happened, but her daughter saw to me. Cleaned my wounds, sewed me up, and fed me porridge and potions until I was strong enough to ride again. And she sewed up the rents in my cloak as well, with some scarlet silk from Asshai that her grandmother had pulled from the wreck of a cog washed up on the Frozen Shore. It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me." He swept the cloak back over his shoulders. "But at the Shadow Tower, I was given a new wool cloak from stores, black and black, and trimmed with black, to go with my black breeches and black boots, my black doublet and black mail. The new cloak had no frays nor rips nor tears . . . and most of all, no red. The men of the Night's Watch dressed in black, Ser Denys Mallister reminded me sternly, as if I had forgotten. My old cloak was fit for burning now, he said.

 

 
 
 
The Shadow Tower is one of three castles along the Wall that are still inhabited by the Night's Watch. It is located next to mountains at the western end of the Wall.[1] 
 
So, at the Western most end of Westeros, Mance ends up at a village, where a woman has red silk. Something mentioned to be only of kings and such. From a wrecked Gog from Asshai, which is on the East end of the World. From the wreck, apparently only a small piece of red silk is all she found of importance too.
 
So either Assshai is just West of Westeros, which, I think they would know by now. A ship from England doesn't just wash up ashore in the America's. Or likewise from China to America. They would need to be much closer, close enough, that they likely would have discovered each other by now. 
 
Or, Mance is lying and twisted the facts. 
1. He never said they went ranging North of the Wall. Nor that the Village was North of the Wall. Mance has come south of the wall repeatedly in the books. Once coming to Winterfell even. 
2. That the Elk and Shadow cat were actually a Lannister and a Baratheon. The Stag killing the Wolf is symbolism for Starks and Barratheons. Cats often for Lannisters.  As with the Azor Ahai legend putting his sword in water (An other) and a lions heart (Lannister) before putting it in Nissa Nissa's heart.  (Typically you quench a sword in oil. Water cools too fast and causes it to crack or shatter. A lions heart makes no sense.)
 
Also, why didn't Mance go back and marry that woman? Why marry Dalla? Because the woman was dead, she died birthing his child. Lyanna.
 
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A Dance with Dragons - Melisandre I

"The spell is made of shadow and suggestion. Men see what they expect to see. The bones are part of that." Was I wrong to spare this one? "If the glamor fails, they will kill you."

The wildling began to scrape the dirt out from beneath his nails with the point of his dagger. "I've sung my songs, fought my battles, drunk summer wine, tasted the Dornishman's wife. A man should die the way he's lived. For me that's steel in hand."

 

 

Mance says he has drank summer wine and tasted the Dornish Man’s wife.

 

When and where did Mance drink Summer Wine and Taste Dornishman's wives????

 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Jon I

Suddenly he realized that the table had fallen silent, and they were all looking at him. He felt the tears begin to well behind his eyes. He pushed himself to his feet.
"I must be excused," he said with the last of his dignity. He whirled and bolted before they could see him cry. He must have drunk more wine than he had realized. His feet got tangled under him as he tried to leave, and he lurched sideways into a serving girl and sent a flagon of spiced wine crashing to the floor. Laughter boomed all around him, and Jon felt hot tears on his cheeks. Someone tried to steady him. He wrenched free of their grip and ran, half-blind, for the door. Ghost followed close at his heels, out into the night.

 

 
 
To the Question of where has Mance had Summer Wine? I ask again. As the only wine mentioned in AGOT around the time Mance was at Winterfell, is spiced wine.
 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Prologue

The young knight turned back to his grizzled man-at-arms. Frost-fallen leaves whispered past them, and Royce's destrier moved restlessly. "What do you think might have killed these men, Gared?" Ser Waymar asked casually. He adjusted the drape of his long sable cloak.
"It was the cold," Gared said with iron certainty. "I saw men freeze last winter, and the one before, when I was half a boy. Everyone talks about snows forty foot deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the north, but the real enemy is the cold. It steals up on you quieter than Will, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter and you stamp your feet and dream of mulled wine and nice hot fires. 

 

 
 
Gareth mentions Mulled wine.
 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys II

There was no one to talk to. Khal Drogo shouted commands and jests down to his bloodriders, and laughed at their replies, but he scarcely glanced at Dany beside him. They had no common language. Dothraki was incomprehensible to her, and the khal knew only a few words of the bastard Valyrian of the Free Cities, and none at all of the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms. She would even have welcomed the conversation of Illyrio and her brother, but they were too far below to hear her.
So she sat in her wedding silks, nursing a cup of honeyed wine, afraid to eat, talking silently to herself. I am blood of the dragon, she told herself. I am Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone, of the blood and seed of Aegon the Conqueror.

 

 
 
Daenerys drinks Honey Wine.
 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Tyrion II

Tyrion was never much use in making a camp or breaking one. Too small, too hobbled, too in-the-way. So while Stark and Yoren and the other men erected rude shelters, tended the horses, and built a fire, it became his custom to take his fur and a wineskin and go off by himself to read.
On the eighteenth night of their journey, the wine was a rare sweet amber from the Summer Isles that he had brought all the way north from Casterly Rock, and the book a rumination on the history and properties of dragons. With Lord Eddard Stark's permission, Tyrion had borrowed a few rare volumes from the Winterfell library and packed them for the ride north.

 

 
 
So unless he was nipping Tyrion's stash, Summerwine is not something Mance would find in the North. He would need to come south of the Neck to taste summer wine. The only unknown Knightwatchmen south of the Wall with a chance to taste summer wine, was the one at the Tourney of Harrenhal. 
 
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A Storm of Swords - Jon I

As the last strains of "The Dornishman's Wife" faded, the bald earless man glanced up from his map and scowled ferociously at Rattleshirt and Ygritte, with Jon between them. "What's this?" he said. "A crow?"
"The black bastard what gutted Orell," said Rattleshirt, "and a bloody warg as well."
"You were to kill them all."
"This one come over," explained Ygritte. "He slew Qhorin Halfhand with his own hand."
"This boy?" The earless man was angered by the news. "The Halfhand should have been mine. Do you have a name, crow?"
"Jon Snow, Your Grace." He wondered whether he was expected to bend the knee as well.
"Your Grace?" The earless man looked at the big white-bearded one. "You see. He takes me for a king."
The bearded man laughed so hard he sprayed bits of chicken everywhere. He rubbed the grease from his mouth with the back of a huge hand. "A blind boy, must be. Who ever heard of a king without ears? Why, his crown would fall straight down to his neck! Har!" He grinned at Jon, wiping his fingers clean on his breeches. "Close your beak, crow. Spin yourself around, might be you'd find who you're looking for."
Jon turned.
The singer rose to his feet. "I'm Mance Rayder," he said as he put aside the lute. "And you are Ned Stark's bastard, the Snow of Winterfell."
Stunned, Jon stood speechless for a moment, before he recovered enough to say, "How . . . how could you know . . ."
"That's a tale for later," said Mance Rayder. "How did you like the song, lad?"

"Well enough. I'd heard it before."

"But what does it matter, for all men must die," the King-beyond-the-Wall said lightly, "and I've tasted the Dornishman's wife. Tell me, does my Lord of Bones speak truly? Did you slay my old friend the Halfhand?"

 

When Jon first meets Mance, Mance insist on reciting the line about kissing the Dornishman’s wife again. Even though he finished the song and they had all been talking for a min before Mance goes back to the song and that specific line. 

 
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The Dornishman's wife was as fair as the sun,

and her kisses were warmer than spring.

But the Dornishman's blade was made of black steel,

and its kiss was a terrible thing.

The Dornishman's wife would sing as she bathed,

in a voice that was sweet as a peach,

But the Dornishman's blade had a song of its own,

and a bite sharp and cold as a leech.

As he lay on the ground with the darkness around,

and the taste of his blood on his tongue,

His brothers knelt by him and prayed him a prayer,

and he smiled and he laughed and he sung,

"Brothers, oh brothers, my days here are done,

the Dornishman's taken my life,

But what does it matter, for all men must die,

and I've tasted the Dornishman's wife!"

 

 

Brothers oh Brothers? Who else calls their fellow men brothers? Nights' Watchmen. 

 

 
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The Dornish Marches, located in the south-west in a long salient along the Red Mountains, serve as an effective buffer zone between the stormlands and their old enemies of the Reach and Dorne.

To Mance Rayder. The Storm lands are near enough to Dorne. To them, anyone south of the wall is a southerner. They don't distinguish that much.

 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Bran II

"As my prince commands. The daughter of the castle was the queen of love and beauty, with four brothers and an uncle to defend her, but all four sons of Harrenhal were defeated on the first day. Their conquerors reigned briefly as champions, until they were vanquished in turn. As it happened, the end of the first day saw the porcupine knight win a place among the champions, and on the morning of the second day the pitchfork knight and the knight of the two towers were victorious as well. But late on the afternoon of that second day, as the shadows grew long, a mystery knight appeared in the lists."
Bran nodded sagely. Mystery knights would oft appear at tourneys, with helms concealing their faces, and shields that were either blank or bore some strange device. Sometimes they were famous champions in disguise. The Dragonknight once won a tourney as the Knight of Tears, so he could name his sister the queen of love and beauty in place of the king's mistress. And Barristan the Bold twice donned a mystery knight's armor, the first time when he was only ten. "It was the little crannogman, I bet."
"No one knew," said Meera, "but the mystery knight was short of stature, and clad in ill-fitting armor made up of bits and pieces. The device upon his shield was a heart tree of the old gods, a white weirwood with a laughing red face."
 
"Whoever he was, the old gods gave strength to his arm. The porcupine knight fell first, then the pitchfork knight, and lastly the knight of the two towers. None were well loved, so the common folk cheered lustily for the Knight of the Laughing Tree, as the new champion soon was called. When his fallen foes sought to ransom horse and armor, the Knight of the Laughing Tree spoke in a booming voice through his helm, saying, 'Teach your squires honor, that shall be ransom enough.' Once the defeated knights chastised their squires sharply, their horses and armor were returned. And so the little crannogman's prayer was answered . . . by the green men, or the old gods, or the children of the forest, who can say?"
It was a good story, Bran decided after thinking about it a moment or two. "Then what happened? Did the Knight of the Laughing Tree win the tourney and marry a princess?"
"No," said Meera. "That night at the great castle, the storm lord and the knight of skulls and kisses each swore they would unmask him, and the king himself urged men to challenge him, declaring that the face behind that helm was no friend of his. But the next morning, when the heralds blew their trumpets and the king took his seat, only two champions appeared. The Knight of the Laughing Tree had vanished. The king was wroth, and even sent his son the dragon prince to seek the man, but all they ever found was his painted shield, hanging abandoned in a tree. It was the dragon prince who won that tourney in the end."
 

 

 
 
A White Tree on his Shield? And a booming voice? Also called he and his repeatedly. 
 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Jon III

"Craster weds his daughters," Jon pointed out.
She punched him again. "Craster's more your kind than ours. His father was a crow who stole a woman out of Whitetree village, but after he had her he flew back t' his Wall. She went t' Castle Black once t' show the crow his son, but the brothers blew their horns and run her off. Craster's blood is black, and he bears a heavy curse." She ran her fingers lightly across his stomach. "I feared you'd do the same once. Fly back to the Wall. You never knew what t' do after you stole me."
Jon sat up. "Ygritte, I never stole you."

 

 
 

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Jon XIII

Gerrick Kingsblood was a tall man, long of leg and broad of shoulder. The queen had dressed him in some of the king's old clothes, it appeared. Scrubbed and groomed, clad in green velvets and an ermine half-cape, with his long red hair freshly washed and his fiery beard shaped and trimmed, the wildling looked every inch a southron lord. He could walk into the throne room at King's Landing, and no one would blink an eye, Jon thought.
"Gerrick is the true and rightful king of the wildlings," the queen said, "descended in an unbroken male line from their great king Raymun Redbeard, whereas the usurper Mance Rayder was born of some common woman and fathered by one of your black brothers."
No, Jon might have said, Gerrick is descended from a younger brother of Raymun Redbeard. To the free folk that counted about as much as being descended from Raymun Redbeard's horse. They know nothing, Ygritte. And worse, they will not learn.

 

 
 
 
Mance's backstory is the same as Crastors. Likely, Mance was born to the same Blackbrother in the same village. 
 
 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Jon VII

"No," Donal Noye roared at three of the Mole's Town men, down below. "The pitch goes to the hoist, the oil up the steps, crossbow bolts to the fourth, fifth, and sixth landings, spears to first and second. Stack the lard under the stair, yes, there, behind the planks. The casks of meat are for the barricade. Now, you poxy plow pushers, NOW!"
He has a lord's voice, Jon thought. His father had always said that in battle a captain's lungs were as important as his sword arm. "It does not matter how brave or brilliant a man is, if his commands cannot be heard," Lord Eddard told his sons, so Robb and he used to climb the towers of Winterfell to shout at each other across the yard. Donal Noye could have drowned out both of them. The moles all went in terror of him, and rightfully so, since he was always threatening to rip their heads off.
Three-quarters of the village had taken Jon's warning to heart and come to Castle Black for refuge. Noye had decreed that every man still spry enough to hold a spear or swing an axe would help defend the barricade, else they could damn well go home and take their chances with the Thenns. He had emptied the armory to put good steel in their hands; big double-bladed axes, razor-sharp daggers, longswords, maces, spiked morningstars. Clad in studded leather jerkins and mail hauberks, with greaves for their legs and gorgets to keep their heads on their shoulders, a few of them even looked like soldiers. In a bad light. If you squint.

 

 
 
A booming voice is needed to lead. Something Mance does. Something the Mystery Knight had the voice for. Not something a female is going to pull off
 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Jon II

Ygritte trotted beside Jon as he slowed his garron to a walk. She claimed to be three years older than him, though she stood half a foot shorter; however old she might be, the girl was a tough little thing. Stonesnake had called her a "spearwife" when they'd captured her in the Skirling Pass. She wasn't wed and her weapon of choice was a short curved bow of horn and weirwood, but "spearwife" fit her all the same. She reminded him a little of his sister Arya, though Arya was younger and probably skinnier. It was hard to tell how plump or thin Ygritte might be, with all the furs and skins she wore.
"Do you know 'The Last of the Giants'?" Without waiting for an answer Ygritte said, "You need a deeper voice than mine to do it proper." Then she sang, "Ooooooh, I am the last of the giants, my people are gone from the earth."

 

 
 
We are never told Lyanna had a deep manly voice. 
 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Jon I

"I see." His uncle glanced over his shoulder at the raised table at the far end of the hall. "My brother does not seem very festive tonight."
Jon had noticed that too. A bastard had to learn to notice things, to read the truth that people hid behind their eyes. His father was observing all the courtesies, but there was tightness in him that Jon had seldom seen before. He said little, looking out over the hall with hooded eyes, seeing nothing. Two seats away, the king had been drinking heavily all night. His broad face was flushed behind his great black beard. He made many a toast, laughed loudly at every jest, and attacked each dish like a starving man, but beside him the queen seemed as cold as an ice sculpture. "The queen is angry too," Jon told his uncle in a low, quiet voice. "Father took the king down to the crypts this afternoon. The queen didn't want him to go."
Benjen gave Jon a careful, measuring look. "You don't miss much, do you, Jon? We could use a man like you on the Wall."

 

 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Jon IV

"Do you ever find anyone in your dream?" Sam asked.
Jon shook his head. "No one. The castle is always empty." He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. "Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream." He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. "That's when I always wake." His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf's shaggy white fur. "Do you dream of Horn Hill?" Jon asked.

 

 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

It is only a wood, Jon told himself, and they're only dead men. He had seen dead men before …
Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. Even when Ghost leapt up on the bed to nuzzle at his face, he could not shake his deep sense of terror. He dared not go back to sleep. Instead he had climbed the Wall and walked, restless, until he saw the light of the dawn off to the east. It was only a dream. I am a brother of the Night's Watch now, not a frightened boy.

 

 
 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. "Father?" he called. "Bran? Rickon?" No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. "Uncle?" he called. "Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me." Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. "Ygritte?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark . . .
The cell was dark, the bed hard beneath him. His own bed, he remembered, his own bed in his steward's cell beneath the Old Bear's chambers. By rights it should have brought him sweeter dreams. Even beneath the furs, he was cold. Ghost had shared his cell before the ranging, warming it against the chill of night. And in the wild, Ygritte had slept beside him. Both gone now. He had burned Ygritte himself, as he knew she would have wanted, and Ghost . . . Where are you? Was he dead as well, was that what his dream had meant, the bloody wolf in the crypts? But the wolf in the dream had been grey, not white. Grey, like Bran's wolf. Had the Thenns hunted him down and killed him after Queenscrown? If so, Bran was lost to him for good and all.

 

 
 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. "Father?" he called. "Bran? Rickon?" No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. "Uncle?" he called. "Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me." Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. "Ygritte?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark . . .
The cell was dark, the bed hard beneath him. His own bed, he remembered, his own bed in his steward's cell beneath the Old Bear's chambers. By rights it should have brought him sweeter dreams. Even beneath the furs, he was cold. Ghost had shared his cell before the ranging, warming it against the chill of night. And in the wild, Ygritte had slept beside him. Both gone now. He had burned Ygritte himself, as he knew she would have wanted, and Ghost . . . Where are you? Was he dead as well, was that what his dream had meant, the bloody wolf in the crypts? But the wolf in the dream had been grey, not white. Grey, like Bran's wolf. Had the Thenns hunted him down and killed him after Queenscrown? If so, Bran was lost to him for good and all.
Jon was trying to make sense of that when the horn blew.

 

 
 
 
What about Ned?
 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard XV

He could no longer tell the difference between waking and sleeping. The memory came creeping upon him in the darkness, as vivid as a dream. It was the year of false spring, and he was eighteen again, down from the Eyrie to the tourney at Harrenhal. He could see the deep green of the grass, and smell the pollen on the wind. Warm days and cool nights and the sweet taste of wine. He remembered Brandon's laughter, and Robert's berserk valor in the melee, the way he laughed as he unhorsed men left and right. He remembered Jaime Lannister, a golden youth in scaled white armor, kneeling on the grass in front of the king's pavilion and making his vows to protect and defend King Aerys. Afterward, Ser Os well Whent helped Jaime to his feet, and the White Bull himself, Lord Commander Ser Gerold Hightower, fastened the snowy cloak of the Kingsguard about his shoulders. All six White Swords were there to welcome their newest brother.
Yet when the jousting began, the day belonged to Rhaegar Targaryen. The crown prince wore the armor he would die in: gleaming black plate with the three-headed dragon of his House wrought in rubies on the breast. A plume of scarlet silk streamed behind him when he rode, and it seemed no lance could touch him. Brandon fell to him, and Bronze Yohn Royce, and even the splendid Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning.
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.

 

 
 
 
The Day belonged to Rhaegar??? What happened to the Mystery Knight stomping everyone? Rhaegars Scarlet silk stood out in his mind though. I wonder if this is the same Scarlet silk given to Mance? Perhaps when Rhaegar found Mance, the Mystery Knight. A token of promise to present the Blue roses for Mance, if Mance would back out of the Tourney. Maybe.
 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

Ser Loras was the youngest son of Mace Tyrell, the Lord of Highgarden and Warden of the South. At sixteen, he was the youngest rider on the field, yet he had unhorsed three knights of the Kingsguard that morning in his first three jousts. Sansa had never seen anyone so beautiful. His plate was intricately fashioned and enameled as a bouquet of a thousand different flowers, and his snow-white stallion was draped in a blanket of red and white roses. After each victory, Ser Loras would remove his helm and ride slowly round the fence, and finally pluck a single white rose from the blanket and toss it to some fair maiden in the crowd.

 

 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

Ser Loras was the youngest son of Mace Tyrell, the Lord of Highgarden and Warden of the South. At sixteen, he was the youngest rider on the field, yet he had unhorsed three knights of the Kingsguard that morning in his first three jousts. Sansa had never seen anyone so beautiful. His plate was intricately fashioned and enameled as a bouquet of a thousand different flowers, and his snow-white stallion was draped in a blanket of red and white roses. After each victory, Ser Loras would remove his helm and ride slowly round the fence, and finally pluck a single white rose from the blanket and toss it to some fair maiden in the crowd.
His last match of the day was against the younger Royce. Ser Robar's ancestral runes proved small protection as Ser Loras split his shield and drove him from his saddle to crash with an awful clangor in the dirt. Robar lay moaning as the victor made his circuit of the field. Finally they called for a litter and carried him off to his tent, dazed and unmoving. Sansa never saw it. Her eyes were only for Ser Loras. When the white horse stopped in front of her, she thought her heart would burst.
To the other maidens he had given white roses, but the one he plucked for her was red. "Sweet lady," he said, "no victory is half so beautiful as you." Sansa took the flower timidly, struck dumb by his gallantry. His hair was a mass of lazy brown curls, his eyes like liquid gold. She inhaled the sweet fragrance of the rose and sat clutching it long after Ser Loras had ridden off.

 

 
 
In the case of Sansa, its the same thing almost. Except its a Knight in white presenting a red rose. Except the Knight she's infatuated with in her silly fairy tale mind, is gay. Further, she is likewise kidnapped, but not by the man who gave her a rose. By some one else. Some one named Bael(ish). 
 
Could Rhaegar have not kidnapped Lyanna? Could it have been someone else? Some one familiar with the legend of Bael from the North? A black brother, down from the Wall. Who through history, would want to steal a Stark Bride to prove his worth as a King Beyond the Wall. While taunting that Stark King, with a Winter Rose. 
 
Mance, Sygerrik the 'deceiver' , has tricked Rhaegar, the Starks, and the Seven Kingdoms. Mance, who with the help of Melisandre, has deceived Stannis and the Nights Watch. 
Mance, who is seeking the Crypts of Winterfell, for some reason. The Horn of Winter? Does he know its in there, cause he left it there with Lyanna?
 
So, if Rhaegar didn't take Lyanna, and Lyanna died in the Crypts of Winterfell. Then who was at the Tower of Joy in Dorne? Who would feel safe in Dorne, rather than the North? Who's brother was guarding the Tower of Joy?
 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life. Proud Martyn Cassel, Jory's father; faithful Theo Wull; Ethan Glover, who had been Brandon's squire; Ser Mark Ryswell, soft of speech and gentle of heart; the crannogman, Howland Reed; Lord Dustin on his great red stallion. Ned had known their faces as well as he knew his own once, but the years leech at a man's memories, even those he has vowed never to forget. In the dream they were only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist.
They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three. They waited before the round tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now. Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had a sad smile on his lips. The hilt of the greatsword Dawn poked up over his right shoulder. Ser Oswell Whent was on one knee, sharpening his blade with a whetstone. Across his white-enameled helm, the black bat of his House spread its wings. Between them stood fierce old Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
"I looked for you on the Trident," Ned said to them.
"We were not there," Ser Gerold answered.
"Woe to the Usurper if we had been," said Ser Oswell.
"When King's Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were."
"Far away," Ser Gerold said, "or Aerys would yet sit the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in seven hells."
"I came down on Storm's End to lift the siege," Ned told them, "and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them."
"Our knees do not bend easily," said Ser Arthur Dayne.
"Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him."
"Ser Willem is a good man and true," said Ser Oswell.
"But not of the Kingsguard," Ser Gerold pointed out. "The Kingsguard does not flee."
"Then or now," said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.
"We swore a vow," explained old Ser Gerold.
Ned's wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.
"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.
"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice. "Now it ends." As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.
"Lord Eddard," Lyanna called again.
"I promise," he whispered. "Lya, I promise …"

 

 
 
 
GRRM has told us not to trust this vision as its a fever dream. What are we to not trust? Was Lyanna actaully not there? Jon was already installed at Winterfell before Cat had arrived. 
 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

Many men fathered bastards. Catelyn had grown up with that knowledge. It came as no surprise to her, in the first year of her marriage, to learn that Ned had fathered a child on some girl chance met on campaign. He had a man's needs, after all, and they had spent that year apart, Ned off at war in the south while she remained safe in her father's castle at Riverrun. Her thoughts were more of Robb, the infant at her breast, than of the husband she scarcely knew. He was welcome to whatever solace he might find between battles. And if his seed quickened, she expected he would see to the child's needs.
He did more than that. The Starks were not like other men. Ned brought his bastard home with him, and called him "son" for all the north to see. When the wars were over at last, and Catelyn rode to Winterfell, Jon and his wet nurse had already taken up residence.

 

 
 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

"He's with the Night's Watch on the Wall." Maybe I should go to the Wall instead of Riverrun. Jon wouldn't care who I killed or whether I brushed my hair . . . "Jon looks like me, even though he's bastard-born. He used to muss my hair and call me 'little sister.'" Arya missed Jon most of all. Just saying his name made her sad. "How do you know about Jon?"
"He is my milk brother."
"Brother?" Arya did not understand. "But you're from Dorne. How could you and Jon be blood?"
"Milk brothers. Not blood. My lady mother had no milk when I was little, so Wylla had to nurse me."
Arya was lost. "Who's Wylla?"
"Jon Snow's mother. He never told you? She's served us for years and years. Since before I was born."
"Jon never knew his mother. Not even her name." Arya gave Ned a wary look. "You know her? Truly?" Is he making mock of me? "If you lie I'll punch your face."
"Wylla was my wet nurse," he repeated solemnly. "I swear it on the honor of my House."
"My lady?" Ned looked embarrassed. "I'm Edric Dayne, the . . . the Lord of Starfall."

 

 
 
When Arya says you're from Dorne, how could you and Jon be blood? Edric corrects her insinuating that Jon was never in Dorne. They are Milk Brothers, not blood. He was never in Dorne for them to be blood. In fact, he thinks Wylla is Jon's mother. 
 
So if Jon was never there, then the child he originally got the milk made for, was not for Jon. It was for a different baby. One that was born in Dorne. Daenerys. 
 
Who did Ashara love? 
 

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

Even after all these years, Ser Barristan could still recall Ashara's smile, the sound of her laughter. He had only to close his eyes to see her, with her long dark hair tumbling about her shoulders and those haunting purple eyes. Daenerys has the same eyes. Sometimes when the queen looked at him, he felt as if he were looking at Ashara's daughter …
But Ashara's daughter had been stillborn, and his fair lady had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost, and perhaps for the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal as well. She died never knowing that Ser Barristan had loved her. How could she? He was a knight of the Kingsguard, sworn to celibacy. No good could have come from telling her his feelings. No good came from silence either. If I had unhorsed Rhaegar and crowned Ashara queen of love and beauty, might she have looked to me instead of Stark?
He would never know. But of all his failures, none haunted Barristan Selmy so much as that.
 
 

 

 

Ashara loved the man who dishonored her at Harrenhal who apparently is dead. Ned and Ashara hooking up is not a dishonor. Least wise compared to his sister Lyanna supposedly running off with married man. Ned is also not dead. Barristan doesn't seem to think or at least mention Eddard as being the father of Ashara's daughter.
 
 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

Jon has a mother. Wylla, her name is Wylla. She would need to remember so she could tell him, the next time she saw him. She wondered if he would still call her "little sister." I'm not so little anymore. He'd have to call me something else. Maybe once she got to Riverrun she could write Jon a letter and tell him what Ned Dayne had said. "There was an Arthur Dayne," she remembered. "The one they called the Sword of the Morning."
"My father was Ser Arthur's elder brother. Lady Ashara was my aunt. I never knew her, though. She threw herself into the sea from atop the Palestone Sword before I was born."

 

 
 
Yet Jon was not in Dorne, as Edric tries to explain to Arya. Hence they can't be blood brothers.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard XII

"I shall wear that as a badge of honor," Ned said dryly.
"Honor," she spat. "How dare you play the noble lord with me! What do you take me for? You've a bastard of your own, I've seen him. Who was the mother, I wonder? Some Dornish peasant you raped while her holdfast burned? A whore? Or was it the grieving sister, the Lady Ashara? She threw herself into the sea, I'm told. Why was that? For the brother you slew, or the child you stole? Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?"
"For a start," said Ned, "I do not kill children. You would do well to listen, my lady. I shall say this only once. When the king returns from his hunt, I intend to lay the truth before him. You must be gone by then. You and your children, all three, and not to Casterly Rock. If I were you, I should take ship for the Free Cities, or even farther, to the Summer Isles or the Port of Ibben. As far as the winds blow."

 

 
 
 
Yet, Ashara had a daughter, not a son. Jon was also never in Dorne. So what child does Eddard have???
 

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

Even after all these years, Ser Barristan could still recall Ashara's smile, the sound of her laughter. He had only to close his eyes to see her, with her long dark hair tumbling about her shoulders and those haunting purple eyes. Daenerys has the same eyes. Sometimes when the queen looked at him, he felt as if he were looking at Ashara's daughter …

 

 
 
Ashara's daughter was Dany. 
 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

And perhaps the dragon did remember, but Dany could not. She had never seen this land her brother said was theirs, this realm beyond the narrow sea. These places he talked of, Casterly Rock and the Eyrie, Highgarden and the Vale of Arryn, Dorne and the Isle of Faces, they were just words to her. Viserys had been a boy of eight when they fled King's Landing to escape the advancing armies of the Usurper, but Daenerys had been only a quickening in their mother's womb.
Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her brother told her the stories. The midnight flight to Dragonstone, moonlight shimmering on the ship's black sails. Her brother Rhaegar battling the Usurper in the bloody waters of the Trident and dying for the woman he loved. The sack of King's Landing by the ones Viserys called the Usurper's dogs, the lords Lannister and Stark. Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar's heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. The polished skulls of the last dragons staring down sightlessly from the walls of the throne room while the Kingslayer opened Father's throat with a golden sword.
She had been born on Dragonstone nine moons after their flight, while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastness apart. They said that storm was terrible. The Targaryen fleet was smashed while it lay at anchor, and huge stone blocks were ripped from the parapets and sent hurtling into the wild waters of the narrow sea. Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her.

 

 
 
Yet, Jamie recalls things differently.
 

 

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A Feast for Crows - Jaime II

Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone. The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed inside the royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon's High Hill to the waiting ship, but he heard her maids whispering after she was gone. They said the queen looked as if some beast had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and chewing on her breasts. A crowned beast, Jaime knew.

 

 
 

 

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A Clash of Kings - Prologue

"Only the false sort, and I'd not do that," Davos said. "He had the truth from me."
Maester Cressen remembered the day Davos had been knighted, after the siege of Storm's End. Lord Stannis and a small garrison had held the castle for close to a year, against the great host of the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne. Even the sea was closed against them, watched day and night by Redwyne galleys flying the burgundy banners of the Arbor. Within Storm's End, the horses had long since been eaten, the dogs and cats were gone, and the garrison was down to roots and rats. Then came a night when the moon was new and black clouds hid the stars. Cloaked in that darkness, Davos the smuggler had dared the Redwyne cordon and the rocks of Shipbreaker Bay alike. His little ship had a black hull, black sails, black oars, and a hold crammed with onions and salt fish. Little enough, yet it had kept the garrison alive long enough for Eddard Stark to reach Storm's End and break the siege.

 

 
 

 

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A Clash of Kings - Theon II

"Euron Croweye has no lack of cunning, though. I've heard men say terrible things of that one."
Theon shifted his seat. "My uncle Euron has not been seen in the islands for close on two years. He may be dead." If so, it might be for the best. Lord Balon's eldest brother had never given up the Old Way, even for a day. His Silence, with its black sails and dark red hull, was infamous in every port from Ibben to Asshai, it was said.

 

 
 

 

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A Clash of Kings - Davos II

Yet they require me to make them true, he thought. It had been a long time since Davos Seaworth felt so sad.
And so it was that he found himself once more crossing Shipbreaker Bay in the dark of night, steering a tiny boat with a black sail. 

 

 
 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Davos V

"A certain Lysene pirate once told me that a good smuggler stays out of sight," Davos replied carefully. "Black sails, muffled oars, and a crew that knows how to hold their tongues."

 

 
 
 
Blacksails are typically for smuggling, or pirates. Typically. Viseys remembers leaving at night with Black sails. While Jamie recalls them leaving in the morning, not midnight. 
 
So if Dany and Viserys left for Dragonstone, at midnight. Then who did Jamie see cloaked, and leaving for Dragonstone in the morning?? He didn't see her, but heard the maids talk about how she was bruised and savaged. Yet the Queen left at midnight

 

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A Feast for Crows - Jaime II

A new stepfather, most like. Jaime knew the look in his sister's eyes. He had seen it before, most recently on the night of Tommen's wedding, when she burned the Tower of the Hand. The green light of the wildfire had bathed the face of the watchers, so they looked like nothing so much as rotting corpses, a pack of gleeful ghouls, but some of the corpses were prettier than others. Even in the baleful glow, Cersei had been beautiful to look upon. She'd stood with one hand on her breast, her lips parted, her green eyes shining. She is crying, Jaime had realized, but whether it was from grief or ecstasy he could not have said.
The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. The day he burned his mace-and-dagger Hand, Jaime and Jon Darry had stood at guard outside her bedchamber whilst the king took his pleasure. "You're hurting me," they had heard Rhaella cry through the oaken door. "You're hurting me." In some queer way, that had been worse than Lord Chelsted's screaming. "We are sworn to protect her as well," Jaime had finally been driven to say. "We are," Darry allowed, "but not from him."

 

 
 
Rhaegar had already came back from Dorne. Could Ashara be the one Aerys raped? Could Ashara have returned to Kings Landing with Rhaegar? Could Ashara be the one Jamie saw?
 
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huge stone blocks were ripped from the parapets and sent hurtling into the wild waters of the narrow sea.

 

Yet no damage to Dragonstone is ever mentioned by anyone who's Pov is at Dragonstone. For how old the castle is, a bad storm doing that much damage would have happened in the past too. Leaving the castle pretty bad by the time of Stannis. Yet no mention.
 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

She did not remember Dragonstone either. They had run again, just before the Usurper's brother set sail with his new-built fleet. By then only Dragonstone itself, the ancient seat of their House, had remained of the Seven Kingdoms that had once been theirs. It would not remain for long. The garrison had been prepared to sell them to the Usurper, but one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness for the safety of the Braavosian coast.
She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her "Little Princess" and sometimes "My Lady," and his hands were soft as old leather. He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

 

 
 
A hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. Hot, in Braavos? With Lemon Trees? 
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A Feast for Crows - Arya I

She saw no thatch, and only a few timbered houses of the sort she knew in Westeros. They have no trees, she realized. Braavos is all stone, a grey city in a green sea.

 

 

 

 

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A Feast for Crows - Arya II

"Nymeria," she said at once.
That night she left the House of Black and White. A long iron knife rode on her right hip, hidden by her cloak, a patched and faded thing of the sort an orphan might wear. Her shoes pinched her toes and her tunic was so threadbare that the wind cut right through it. But Braavos lay before her. The night air smelled of smoke and salt and fish. The canals were crooked, the alleys crookeder. Men gave her curious looks as she went past, and beggar children called out words she could not understand. Before long she was completely lost.

 

 
 

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Blind Girl

The clothes she wore were rags, faded and fraying, but warm clean rags for all that. Under them she hid three knives—one in a boot, one up a sleeve, one sheathed at the small of her back. Braavosi were a kindly folk, by and large, more like to help the poor blind beggar girl than try to do her harm, but there were always a few bad ones who might see her as someone they could safely rob or rape. The blades were for them, though so far the blind girl had not been forced to use them. A cracked wooden begging bowl and belt of hempen rope completed her garb.
She set out as the Titan roared the sunset, counting her way down the steps from the temple door, then tapping to the bridge that took her over the canal to the Isle of the Gods. She could tell that the fog was thick from the clammy way her clothes clung to her and the damp feeling of the air on her bare hands. The mists of Braavos did queer things to sounds as well, she had found. Half the city will be half-blind tonight.

 

 
 

 

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A Feast for Crows - Cat Of The Canals

By the time the three of them climbed down the ladder from the room beneath the eaves, Brusco and his sons were out in the boat on the little canal behind the house. Brusco barked at the girls to hurry, as he did every morning. His sons helped Talea and Brea onto the boat. It was Cat's task to untie them from the piling, toss the rope to Brea, and shove the boat away from the dock with a booted foot. Brusco's sons leaned into their poles. Cat ran and leapt across the widening gap between dock and deck.
After that, she had nothing to do but sit and yawn for a long while as Brusco and his sons pushed them through the predawn gloom, wending down a confusion of small canals. The day looked to be a rare one, crisp and clear and bright. Braavos only had three kinds of weather; fog was bad, rain was worse, and freezing rain was worst. But every so often would come a morning when the dawn broke pink and blue and the air was sharp and salty. Those were the days that Cat loved best.

 

 
 
Not only are there no trees, but the weather is not hot and moist.  Fog, rain, and freezing rain are not warm, or suitable for Lemon Trees. They don't even have normal trees.
 
 
Things are not adding up as we are told. Eddard took a baby girl from Dorne, not a boy, and Jon was never in Dorne. Per Edric. 
Jamie saw someone possibly raped by Aerys leaving for dragon stone in the morning. Viserys remembers leaving at midnight tho.
Dany remembers Lemon Trees and weather not in agreement with Braavos.
A Black brother was at Harrenhal, and Mance tells Melisandre that he's drank summerwines and tasted Dornish wives. Yet, both are only found south of the neck.
He has red silk, he got in the East of Westeros, from a girl who got it from an Asshai ship. Even though Asshai  is East of Westeros. Rhaegar wears red silk
Jon Connington makes no mention of Lyanna, who got Rhaegar killed. Yet is catty about Elia not being worthy of Rhaegar. 
Dany dreams she is Rhaegar, and Barristan thinks she looks like Ashara.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

"… the dragon …"
And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.

 

 
While Jon dreams of the Crypts and is told of a Stark being born down there to a King Beyond the Wall. 
Sansa has a similar tourney, yet is not kidnapped by who gave her the rose, but by some one being sneaky.
 
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Sygerrik of Skagos. Sygerrik means 'deceiver' in the Old Tongue,

 

Yet, maybe these are just a lotttt of loose threads and red herrings. Maybe its just as Dany thinks. Rhaegar loved Lyanna. No mystery. She'll out right believe Jon is Rhagears child with Lyanna. 

Maybe Lyanna went through puberty and developed a deep voice. Met a married man with kids, and ran off with him to get married in secret and give him an extra kid. Maybe she didn't care that she started a war, or got her family killed. Maybe Rhaegar is dumb enough to give Lyanna a crown of roses, then kidnap her, and hope no one would notice or suspect him. Maybe after choosing Elia despite having the option of any woman nearly, he simply fell out of love for her. Or never loved and simply wed her to anger his father and Tywin. Maybe the Martells didn't care that Elia had been dishonored and still have nothing bad to say about Rhaegar. Despite causing the war that got Elia killed. Maybe Viserys and Jamie are remembering wrong. Maybe Daenerys is remembering right and lemon Trees and her were in Braavos. Maybe Ned's fever dream is just as he remembers. Lyanna was at the Tower of Joy, and GRRM is wrong in telling us not to trust his dream.

 

Seems logical, right?

 
Daenerys can't be the Dayne Heiress, because reliable narrators tell us so. Dayne's don't matter, and Jon is the Child of Rhaegar and Lyanna. Just go with it. 
 
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A Clash of Kings - Tyrion II

Varys smiled. " Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less."

 
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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

"Will you make a song for him?" the woman asked.
"He has a song," the man replied. "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire." He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany's, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. "There must be one more," he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. "The dragon has three heads." He went to the window seat, picked up a harp, and ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings. Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the morning mist, only the music lingering behind to speed her on her way.

 

 
 
It is possible that Dany is seeing this vision from her mother Ashara's eyes. As Ashara was a lady in waiting to Elia, and would have been present. Aegon having been born shortly before Harrenhal, and Ashara having not been long to court. They line up.
 
Rhaegar is possibly looking at his best friends sister. Ashara Dayne, with Sir Arthur Dayne guarding his sister later, when Eddard showed up. 
 
Daenerys, the Dayne Heiress and Sword/Star of the Morning. 
 

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Davos I

"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.

 

 
 
Jon was already in the North, no mention of any one seeing Eddard with the baby though. No mention of him returning from the war and arriving at White Harbor with a baby. Only other mention is from Cersei, assuming Ashara's baby is Jon, but Edric tells us Jon was never in Dorne. Since its not possible they are blood brothers.
 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

"You were never the boy you were," Robert grumbled. "More's the pity. And yet there was that one time … what was her name, that common girl of yours? Becca? No, she was one of mine, gods love her, black hair and these sweet big eyes, you could drown in them. Yours was … Aleena? No. You told me once. Was it Merryl? You know the one I mean, your bastard's mother?"
"Her name was Wylla," Ned replied with cool courtesy, "and I would sooner not speak of her."
"Wylla. Yes." The king grinned. "She must have been a rare wench if she could make Lord Eddard Stark forget his honor, even for an hour. You never told me what she looked like …"

 

 
 
Robert had never even seen or met Wylla. Plus, he's still shocked Eddard would have a Bastard, who knew Eddard when he was young and reckless. Not even Robert mentions seeing Eddard with a kid at any point. Jon is just magically installed at Winterfell. Doesn't even mention Ashara Dayne and Eddard, not once. Nor does he suspect Ashara had Eddard's child. (For a man who does a lot of whoring, Robert seems strangely oblivious of Ashara Dayne. Who is described as possibly hotter than Cersei in her prime, and Lyanna. As Arya, who is said to look like both Jon, and Lyanna, is described as having a horse face. 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Arya I

Arya glared at her. "I have to go shoe a horse," she said sweetly, taking a brief satisfaction in the shock on the septa's face. Then she whirled and made her exit, running down the steps as fast as her feet would take her.
It wasn't fair. Sansa had everything. Sansa was two years older; maybe by the time Arya had been born, there had been nothing left. Often it felt that way. Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells. Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother's fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys. Arya took after their lord father. Her hair was a lusterless brown, and her face was long and solemn. Jeyne used to call her Arya Horseface, and neigh whenever she came near.

 

 
The Long face of the Starks.
 
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The World of Ice and Fire - Dorne: Queer Customs of the South

The salty Dornish, the scions of the Rhoynar, lost their mother tongue over the centuries, though that tongue still marks the way the Dornish speak the Common Tongue—stretching some sounds, rolling others, and lilting still others in odd places. Dornish speech has been described by some as charming, and by others (the marchers, chiefly and unfairly) as incomprehensible. But more than that, the Rhoynar brought with them their customs and their laws, which the Martells then spread throughout Dorne. So in Dorne, alone among the Seven Kingdoms, it is the eldest child—man or woman—who will inherit, and not just the eldest son. Great ladies and famous princesses abound, and are the subject of songs and tales as much as the great knights and princes.
There are other customs besides that mark the Dornish as different. They are not greatly concerned if a child is born in wedlock or out of it, especially if the child is born to a paramour. Many lords—and even some ladies—have paramours, chosen for love and lust rather than for breeding or alliance. 

 

 

Would it be weird for Rhaegar to have a Dornish paramour in Ashara Dayne as a surrogate mother?

(There are too many quotes of Targaryen's with Paramours)

 

Also, as told in WOIAF. Outside of Dorne, you don't marry for love, you marry for heirs or alliances. 

Henry the VIII couldn't get a divorce from his first wife despite no heir born. He had to break with the church and risk open war with the Holy Roman Emperor in Spain. His wife's uncle. 

Rhaegar wanting a divorce from a girl who provided him his heir, is not likely warranted. Not impossible for a corrupt church, but risks open war with Dorne. Rhaegar traveling through the largest city in Westeros with no one knowing he was there, is pretty slim though. Rhaegar was married to a Martell, and friends with a Hightower, and a Dayne. Going to war with Dorne didn't seem to be his plan

 

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A Feast for Crows - Jaime I

The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate. "Your Grace," Jaime had pleaded, "let Darry stay to guard the king this once, or Ser Barristan. Their cloaks are as white as mine."
Prince Rhaegar shook his head. "My royal sire fears your father more than he does our cousin Robert. He wants you close, so Lord Tywin cannot harm him. I dare not take that crutch away from him at such an hour."
"Then guard the king," Ser Jon Darry snapped at him. "When you donned that cloak, you promised to obey."
Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime's shoulder. "When this battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but . . . well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return."
Those were the last words Rhaegar Targaryen ever spoke to him. Outside the gates an army had assembled, whilst another descended on the Trident. So the Prince of Dragonstone mounted up and donned his tall black helm, and rode forth to his doom.

 

 

. Rhaegar did nothing to mend Tywin's feelings by marrying Elia over Cersei. Would he turn around and anger Dorne too, just so he could anger the Stormlands, Vale, Riverlands, and the North. Is it possible that Rhaegar was trying to anger the entire 7 Kingdoms and was just waiting to drop his final insult on the Iron Islands some how? 

Meant to have a council long ago but blew his own plan? Worked to get the Tourney set up as a secret meeting place, then doesn't hold the meeting. Yet, he doesn't kidnap Lyanna till after Harrenhal? So what stopped him from holding his council? A girl he just met? His friends didn't pull him aside and question why the heck he even bothered with Harrenhal? They just blindly follow him in taking Lyanna? No one has any personal stakes in this at risk, should anyone discover their planned council? Or planned kidnapping? Their houses wont be held responsible for their actions? In a feudal world? Like, when Ned was called before his own friend, the King, to answer for his daughters actions. Or like when Aerys called Lord Stark to answer for Brandons actions. Like Walder Frey punishing all the Starks despite just their King Rob betraying the Freys? No ones family fortunes or at risk of seizure by Aerys should he discover a usurpation plot? Let alone their lives and families lives at risk? Backing Rhaegar is not following your lord, its Treason. Punishable by Death. Yet the guy they are following in usurpation can't make up his mind what he's doing, and is led astray by a girl and prophecy? 

Does Rhaegar think holding the council after all his reckless actions has somehow proved his worth as a leader and a king, and not just another mad Targaryen? Pipe dreams from a stoner maybe? Do they have weed in Westeros? Cause Rhaegar sure is a day dreamer. 

 

Or did Sygerrik mess up Rhaegars plan, by kidnapping Lyanna and framing Rhaegar? There must be a way for Rhaegar to clear things up with his lords after defeating Robert in Battle. He surely can not hope they would follow a reckless person who randomly kidnaps his fellow lords daughters. Perhaps they should lock up their daughters. Robert or Rhaegar, both might bang your daughter. At least Robert doesn't kidnap them. The unspoken gentlemen? Rhaegar should have been a wildling if that's his fancy. He would fit right in. South of the Wall, they tend to take offense to missing daughters. Then again, kidnapping daughters in more of a wildling thing to do. Based around the legend of their king Bael. Sygerrik. King beyond the Wall.

 

 Abel= Bael. 

 

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Turncloak

A ruined man, a ruined castle. This is my place.
He was still waiting for his porridge when Ramsay swept into the hall with his Bastard's Boys, shouting for music. Abel rubbed the sleep from his eyes, took up his lute, and launched into "The Dornishman's Wife," whilst one of his washerwomen beat time on her drum. The singer changed the words, though. Instead of tasting a Dornishman's wife, he sang of tasting a northman's daughter.

 

 
 
Well thats just rude.
 

 

 
 
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  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, Khal Rhaego Targaryen said:

Wow :o

The more I look at Mance, the more I think of him as the trickster. The Taking of a woman south of the Wall happens with Tormund and Maege Mormont, before Mance takes Lyanna. Since Tormund was going to be King originally till Mance challenged him for it. So Mance doing it, is one upping Tormund. Went further south, and took the crown jewel. A Stark maid. 

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The Day belonged to Rhaegar??? What happened to the Mystery Knight stomping everyone? Rhaegars Scarlet silk stood out in his mind though. I wonder if this is the same Scarlet silk given to Mance? Perhaps when Rhaegar found Mance, the Mystery Knight. A token of promise to present the Blue roses for Mance, if Mance would back out of the Tourney. Maybe.

Turning up on the second day of the tournament and vanishing before the third day, the Mystery Knight only ever challenged and fought three knights, not more. That's hardly "everyone". 

Regarding the scarlet silk, Rhaegar the Targaryen Crown Prince could probably have as much scarlet silk as he wanted, without getting any from a black brother. Besides, why would Mance's piece of silk be made into a plume? (Someone would have noted it if the plume had been just a piece of silken rag.)

The timing does not work either. According to Mance, he went to Winterfell once with the Lord Commander and met the young Jon and Robb there. Jon recalled this meeting with "a young black brother", too. The red silk story happened after that, so how could Mance have given the red silk as a token to Rhaegar back in Harrenhal?

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Edric tells us Jon was never in Dorne

Edric never tells anyone such a thing. He explains that he and Jon Snow are milk brothers, not blood brothers, because they were breastfed by the same woman. That does not mean Jon was never in Dorne. If it indicates anything about Jon Snow's whereabouts, it is that he probably was in Dorne, but there is no way it indicates Jon was not in Dorne.

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Could Rhaegar have not kidnapped Lyanna? Could it have been someone else? Some one familiar with the legend of Bael from the North? A black brother, down from the Wall. Who through history, would want to steal a Stark Bride to prove his worth as a King Beyond the Wall. While taunting that Stark King, with a Winter Rose. 

While Mance is definitely a symbolic Bael figure, I find it rather strange that already when he was a (probably very young!) watchman he was supposedly planning to become King-Beyond-the-Wall and he thought he needed to prove his worth as such by stealing a Stark girl as a first step. 

The actual storyline does not support this theory. Jon remembers Mance as a "young" black brother when they first met, which means Mance was young enough for a kid to find him young, but Jon was old enough to have a memory of the meeting. Years before that, at the time of the Harrenhal tournament, Mance must have been a young teenager (with a correspondingly "booming" voice) and unlikely to roam the South on his own as a black brother. It is even less likely that he was planning to become King-Beyond-the-Wall at the time, and much, much less likely that he was planning to achieve it by stealing the Stark girl. 

The "stealing" could be used to "prove" anything if it was actually known, but, apparently, it isn't known by anyone South or North of the Wall. South of the Wall, everyone seems to think it was Rhaegar who took the Stark girl. If this act of Mance were known North of the Wall, Ygritte would surely mention it to Jon how their current king also seduced a Stark girl, when Jon says the Bael story never happened. 

If you want to say that the Bael the Bard story was literally repeated by Mance and Lyanna, then Mance needs to be a King-Beyond-the-Wall at the time and a famous enemy of the Starks. But he wasn't. In fact, no one repeats the original Bael story word by word. 

There are many Bael-the-Bard stories in ASOIAF, replaying the original story with various twists and variations and with various Bael-figures. Mance is one of these Bael figures, but his Stark girl is the fake Stark girl. Rhaegar is another (Southern) Bael figure, prince and bard at the same time, with Lyanna as his Stark girl, Littlefinger is yet another one, and Ygritte (though a woman) is one more.

Regarding The Dornishman's Wife, if Mance wants to present himself as a Bael figure, he has no reason to refer to Lyanna as a Dornishman's wife - the wildlings do not have issues with the Dornish. Robert is, of course, not a Dornishman, but even if he was, why would Mance place emphasis on having a taste of his wife? Lyanna's role in any Bael story would be strictly that of the Stark rose.

Besides, there is zero evidence that Lyanna died in the Winterfell crypts (how did she even get there?) or that Jon was born there.

 

 

 

 

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Jon is the blue winter rose (as per Dany's HOTU vision and grouped with 2 other men she will/has bed).

Dany is Sygerrik.

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"Brave black crow," she mocked. "Well, long before he was king over the free folk, Bael was a great raider."

Stonesnake gave a snort. "A murderer, robber, and raper, is what you mean."

"That's all in where you're standing too,"

Great raider or murderer, robber and raper, depending on where you're standing. And from where Jon is standing Dany will be

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One day in his bitterness he called Bael a craven who preyed only on the weak.

Fighting battles and sacking cities on her dragon which no-one can defend against - a craven preying on the weak. So Jon won't be inclined to willingly sleep with her, and so Dany will have to turn to deception (hence the deceiver) to get the deed done - that is to pluck the blue flower from the icy wall.

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1 hour ago, AlaskanSandman said:

The more I look at Mance, the more I think of him as the trickster. The Taking of a woman south of the Wall happens with Tormund and Maege Mormont, before Mance takes Lyanna. Since Tormund was going to be King originally till Mance challenged him for it. So Mance doing it, is one upping Tormund. Went further south, and took the crown jewel. A Stark maid. 

:agree:

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Bael wrote his own songs, and lived them. I only sing the songs that better men have made. More mead?"

The singer changed the words, though. Instead of tasting a Dornishman's wife, he sang of tasting a northman's daughter.

"A fool sings what he will," the maester told his anxious princess. "You must not take his words to heart. On the morrow he may remember another song, and this one will never be heard again." He can sing prettily in four tongues, Lord Steffon had written . . .

 

whenever he came back he would bring a song. When you heard him play his high harp with the silver strings and sing o

 

. It happens I know the song. Mance would sing it of old, when he came back from a ranging.


She shrugged. "Might be it did, might be it didn't. It is a good song, though. My mother used to sing it to me. She was a woman too, Jon Snow. Like yours." She rubbed her throat where his dirk had cut her. "The song ends when they find the babe, but there is a darker end to the story.

 

Yet Robert was Ned's king now, and not just a friend, so he said only, "Your Grace. Winterfell is yours."

 

I betook of your lord father's meat and mead, had a look at Kingslayer and Imp . . . and made passing note of Lord Eddard's children and the wolf pups that ran at their heels."

Who’s meat was it? Neds or Roberts?…”Look at Imp and Kingslayer”. Not Jamie and Tyrion. He took note of Lord Eddard’s children. Is he not including Jon as his son nor Lord Eddard’s?…Musical note of the children?

 

 

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11 hours ago, Julia H. said:

Turning up on the second day of the tournament and vanishing before the third day, the Mystery Knight only ever challenged and fought three knights, not more. That's hardly "everyone". 

Regarding the scarlet silk, Rhaegar the Targaryen Crown Prince could probably have as much scarlet silk as he wanted, without getting any from a black brother. Besides, why would Mance's piece of silk be made into a plume? (Someone would have noted it if the plume had been just a piece of silken rag.)

The timing does not work either. According to Mance, he went to Winterfell once with the Lord Commander and met the young Jon and Robb there. Jon recalled this meeting with "a young black brother", too. The red silk story happened after that, so how could Mance have given the red silk as a token to Rhaegar back in Harrenhal?

Edric never tells anyone such a thing. He explains that he and Jon Snow are milk brothers, not blood brothers, because they were breastfed by the same woman. That does not mean Jon was never in Dorne. If it indicates anything about Jon Snow's whereabouts, it is that he probably was in Dorne, but there is no way it indicates Jon was not in Dorne.

While Mance is definitely a symbolic Bael figure, I find it rather strange that already when he was a (probably very young!) watchman he was supposedly planning to become King-Beyond-the-Wall and he thought he needed to prove his worth as such by stealing a Stark girl as a first step. 

The actual storyline does not support this theory. Jon remembers Mance as a "young" black brother when they first met, which means Mance was young enough for a kid to find him young, but Jon was old enough to have a memory of the meeting. Years before that, at the time of the Harrenhal tournament, Mance must have been a young teenager (with a correspondingly "booming" voice) and unlikely to roam the South on his own as a black brother. It is even less likely that he was planning to become King-Beyond-the-Wall at the time, and much, much less likely that he was planning to achieve it by stealing the Stark girl. 

The "stealing" could be used to "prove" anything if it was actually known, but, apparently, it isn't known by anyone South or North of the Wall. South of the Wall, everyone seems to think it was Rhaegar who took the Stark girl. If this act of Mance were known North of the Wall, Ygritte would surely mention it to Jon how their current king also seduced a Stark girl, when Jon says the Bael story never happened. 

If you want to say that the Bael the Bard story was literally repeated by Mance and Lyanna, then Mance needs to be a King-Beyond-the-Wall at the time and a famous enemy of the Starks. But he wasn't. In fact, no one repeats the original Bael story word by word. 

There are many Bael-the-Bard stories in ASOIAF, replaying the original story with various twists and variations and with various Bael-figures. Mance is one of these Bael figures, but his Stark girl is the fake Stark girl. Rhaegar is another (Southern) Bael figure, prince and bard at the same time, with Lyanna as his Stark girl, Littlefinger is yet another one, and Ygritte (though a woman) is one more.

Regarding The Dornishman's Wife, if Mance wants to present himself as a Bael figure, he has no reason to refer to Lyanna as a Dornishman's wife - the wildlings do not have issues with the Dornish. Robert is, of course, not a Dornishman, but even if he was, why would Mance place emphasis on having a taste of his wife? Lyanna's role in any Bael story would be strictly that of the Stark rose.

Besides, there is zero evidence that Lyanna died in the Winterfell crypts (how did she even get there?) or that Jon was born there.

 

 

 

 

I never said Mance stole Lyanna and instantly left the Watch. I also never said Mance gave Rhaegar a slash of his black coat. Mance's red silk is from Rhaegar, who wore red silk. Lyanna got to Winterfell the same hypothetical way she got to the Tower of Joy. She was taken there by her captive. Jon has dreams of searching the crypts and Mance wants into the crypts too. This is not coincidence. 

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9 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

I never said Mance stole Lyanna and instantly left the Watch. I also never said Mance gave Rhaegar a slash of his black coat. Mance's red silk is from Rhaegar, who wore red silk. Lyanna got to Winterfell the same hypothetical way she got to the Tower of Joy. She was taken there by her captive. Jon has dreams of searching the crypts and Mance wants into the crypts too. This is not coincidence. 

All right, I misunderstood who, in your opinion, gave the red silk to whom. So, it was Rhaegar who gave it to Mance... In this case, Mance only invented the story he told Jon about the slashed cloak of black and red. He told Jon this lie because ... why not? And, of course, the red silk did make it into the black cloak somehow, though for the how and when, there is no other explanation.

So just to see that I understand you perfectly this time: Mance, who, as a teenage black brother, somehow managed to be in Harrenhal during the tournament on his own (we are told that Benjen, who was also present at the tournament, "had never met him"), stole the daughter of one of the great lords of the realm there, managed to frame the Crown Prince for the action, then took the girl all the way through the Riverlands and the North to Winterfell, the girl's own home, and kept her in the crypts until their son was born, then went back to the Night's Watch with no one there wondering where he had been all those months and no one having declared him a deserter in the meantime. Then Mance served in the NW for years to come in the happy knowledge that he had proved his worth as a future King-Beyond-the-Wall and succeeded in keeping it secret from everyone. 

Ned, who was fighting in the South, apparently, somehow found Lyanna and Jon in the crypts. Lyanna managed to extract some promise from him but never managed to tell him who the father of her child was? After all, even if Mance never told her his name, Lyanna was surely able to recognize the uniform of the Night's Watch. I think if Ned had been informed that her abductor had been a man of the Night's Watch, he would have found out which watchmen had been missing for months, and I think it would have been a very short list.

But Ned doesn't go after Mance, instead he presents Jon as his own bastard, somehow acquires a Dornish wet nurse for him (why, oh why?), and repeatedly refuses to tell Catelyn the truth about Jon - that Jon is in fact his sister's son with a common brigand -, even though the truth would give Catelyn some peace of mind. Ned also keeps associating Lyanna with the Tower of Joy in the far South - but of course, just as Mance needs to have been lying about the story of the red silk, so Ned's fever dream is unreliable. Well, Rhaegar's plume of red silk occurs in Ned's dream only, so how can you take its existence at face value?

It's a slippery path where you simply dismiss canon information which contradicts your theory and only accept the information (even from the same source) that you can use.

The Winterfell crypts have obvious importance but just because you offer an explanation for the importance of the crypts, the existing importance of the crypts does not serve as evidence for the explanation.

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7 hours ago, Julia H. said:

All right, I misunderstood who, in your opinion, gave the red silk to whom. So, it was Rhaegar who gave it to Mance... In this case, Mance only invented the story he told Jon about the slashed cloak of black and red. He told Jon this lie because ... why not? And, of course, the red silk did make it into the black cloak somehow, though for the how and when, there is no other explanation.

So just to see that I understand you perfectly this time: Mance, who, as a teenage black brother, somehow managed to be in Harrenhal during the tournament on his own (we are told that Benjen, who was also present at the tournament, "had never met him"), stole the daughter of one of the great lords of the realm there, managed to frame the Crown Prince for the action, then took the girl all the way through the Riverlands and the North to Winterfell, the girl's own home, and kept her in the crypts until their son was born, then went back to the Night's Watch with no one there wondering where he had been all those months and no one having declared him a deserter in the meantime. Then Mance served in the NW for years to come in the happy knowledge that he had proved his worth as a future King-Beyond-the-Wall and succeeded in keeping it secret from everyone. 

Ned, who was fighting in the South, apparently, somehow found Lyanna and Jon in the crypts. Lyanna managed to extract some promise from him but never managed to tell him who the father of her child was? After all, even if Mance never told her his name, Lyanna was surely able to recognize the uniform of the Night's Watch. I think if Ned had been informed that her abductor had been a man of the Night's Watch, he would have found out which watchmen had been missing for months, and I think it would have been a very short list.

But Ned doesn't go after Mance, instead he presents Jon as his own bastard, somehow acquires a Dornish wet nurse for him (why, oh why?), and repeatedly refuses to tell Catelyn the truth about Jon - that Jon is in fact his sister's son with a common brigand -, even though the truth would give Catelyn some peace of mind. Ned also keeps associating Lyanna with the Tower of Joy in the far South - but of course, just as Mance needs to have been lying about the story of the red silk, so Ned's fever dream is unreliable. Well, Rhaegar's plume of red silk occurs in Ned's dream only, so how can you take its existence at face value?

It's a slippery path where you simply dismiss canon information which contradicts your theory and only accept the information (even from the same source) that you can use.

The Winterfell crypts have obvious importance but just because you offer an explanation for the importance of the crypts, the existing importance of the crypts does not serve as evidence for the explanation.

So Ned doesn't go after Rhaegar, Lyanna's supposed lover. Yet you think he would go after Mance, if he was her supposed lover. That doesn't make sense.

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What if the Brandon in question in the tale of Bael the bard was Eddard’s older brother? What if the Tower of Joy was in the North? 
 

Just trying to conjoin the opposing thoughts on the thread

There is that old book about a man enters a dream then falls asleep in the dream and has another  dream. “ My name is padre…I love Philo…” It’s a lie based on another lie.

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3 minutes ago, Fool Stands On Giant’s Toe said:

What if the Brandon in question in the tale of Bael the bard was Eddard’s older brother? What if the Tower of Joy was in the North? 
 

Just trying to conjoin the opposing thoughts on the thread

Not my idea, but the original Brandon theory was that he and Ashara hooked up in dungeons of K.L. for the same reason I think it was Mance in the Crypts of Winterfell. As both place Jon's birth in a lower underground place in the dark, rather than up high in a tower which suggest light and the sun. Things that point to Dany and her dragons 

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8 minutes ago, Fool Stands On Giant’s Toe said:

There is that old book about a man enters a dream then falls asleep in the dream and has another  dream. “ My name is padre…I love Philo…” It’s a lie based on another lie.

Anyone know the name of that book? I can’t remember 

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4 hours ago, Fool Stands On Giant’s Toe said:

Anyone know the name of that book? I can’t remember 

don't know. but you made me wanna watch Inception again

 

4 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

So Ned doesn't go after Rhaegar, Lyanna's supposed lover. Yet you think he would go after Mance, if he was her supposed lover. That doesn't make sense.

well, Rhaegar was the crown prince whereas Mance was a nobody .. and he did go on a civil war:dunno:. But Julia.H , we don't have Mance's exact age but he did have gray hair when Jon met him , therefore he wouldn't be a teenager and could supposedly be the black brother at Harrenhal.

anyways, I just remembered sth . so , Mance and Jon had met before at Winterfell .. yet, Ned must have known who Lyanna was with ( he's gone to a war to kill the rapist prince only to realize she was home all along! I imagine his first question after "what?" would be "who?" !) ... @AlaskanSandman any idea on why Ned let Mance under his roof even if he didn't want to kill the guy? 

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10 minutes ago, EggBlue said:

don't know. but you made me wanna watch Inception again

 

well, Rhaegar was the crown prince whereas Mance was a nobody .. and he did go on a civil war:dunno:. But Julia.H , we don't have Mance's exact age but he did have gray hair when Jon met him , therefore he wouldn't be a teenager and could supposedly be the black brother at Harrenhal.

anyways, I just remembered sth . so , Mance and Jon had met before at Winterfell .. yet, Ned must have known who Lyanna was with ( he's gone to a war to kill the rapist prince only to realize she was home all along! I imagine his first question after "what?" would be "who?" !) ... @AlaskanSandman any idea on why Ned let Mance under his roof even if he didn't want to kill the guy? 

Still Jon's father and Lyanna's ex lover. Ned may feel he's entitled to check up on his son, but still prefer him to keep a respectful distance. Even as King Beyond the Wall, Ned seems very casual about him. Would be made more so if he knew that he held Mance's son. He would have a hostage against Mance.

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1 hour ago, EggBlue said:

he did have gray hair

Gray roots. Could be a dye job?

That book was a 15th century poem or song. The first letter of each chapter spells out My name is Padre….and I love Philomena? Very much. The book was anonymous. But the name fit a family of cardinals. Was about the Bible being based on a lie.

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23 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

So Ned doesn't go after Rhaegar, Lyanna's supposed lover. Yet you think he would go after Mance, if he was her supposed lover. That doesn't make sense.

Well, it was Brandon, the oldest brother who went after Rhaegar (on behalf of the whole family), and we all know what the result was and what kind of family tragedy Ned had to deal with. Rhaegar allegedly disappeared, too, but even if he had not, it was quite clearly not within Ned's means to go after him (as Brandon's example showed). Soon after that, Ned had to fight a war against the Targaryens in general, which was a much bigger thing than just going after one Targaryen. Then, when the rebellion was over and he found Lyanna, Rhaegar was already dead. 

However, after the rebellion, Ned, as the Warden of the North, had every possibility to carry out an investigation in the Night's Watch, find the culprit and punish him (or force him to flee). Remember that Mance at this time is still in the NW for years to come.

18 hours ago, EggBlue said:

But Julia.H , we don't have Mance's exact age but he did have gray hair when Jon met him , therefore he wouldn't be a teenager and could supposedly be the black brother at Harrenhal.

Some people have gray hair in their thirties. My grandfather was one of those people. He had white hair at the age of 30.

I'm not good at calculating timelines but (therefore) I trust the wiki. This is what I see there and what I think on the basis of that:

Tourney of Harrenhal: 381 AC

Quote

Some time between 286 AC and 288 AC, Lord Commander Qorgyle traveled to Winterfell to meet with Lord Eddard Stark, with Mance among the black brothers escorting him. In Winterfell, he encountered the young Robb Stark and Jon Snow playing a prank, and promised not to tell. (Wiki)

Jon Snow was born in 283 AC, so at the time Mance went to Winterfell, he must have been between 3 and 5 years of age.

This is how Mance and Jon remember their meeting in Winterfell:

Quote

 

"Very good! Yes, that was the first time. You were just a boy, and I was all in black, one of a dozen riding escort to old Lord Commander Qorgyle when he came down to see your father at Winterfell. I was walking the wall around the yard when I came on you and your brother Robb. It had snowed the night before, and the two of you had built a great mountain above the gate and were waiting for someone likely to pass underneath."

"I remember," said Jon with a startled laugh. A young black brother on the wallwalk, yes . . . "You swore not to tell."

 

So Jon remembers Mance as a young black brother. At the time Jon had been a young kid, and young kids don't usually see people in their thirties or late twenties as particularly "young", besides, at the time of remembering, Jon himself is still very young - a teenager. (Another black brother, Benjen Stark, who is around 30 in AGOT is never thought of as currently "young" by Jon.) I don't think life on the Wall is particularly conducive to preserving a youthful look for a long time, therefore I find it likely that Mance wasn't older than in his early twenties, and was possibly younger that that, when he visited Winterfell with Lord Commander Qorgyle. (Ned Stark was in his mid-twenties at the time, and kids usually see their parents and their parents' peers as adults rather than young people.) In that case, five, six or seven years earlier Mance had been a teenager, perhaps a rather young teenager. In addition to his young age, he was wildling-born and untrained in the ways of the South, therefore it seems very unlikely that he was given the opportunity to represent the Night's Watch on his own at an event where the greatest lords of the realm, including the royal family, gathered. 

18 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Still Jon's father and Lyanna's ex lover. Ned may feel he's entitled to check up on his son, but still prefer him to keep a respectful distance. Even as King Beyond the Wall, Ned seems very casual about him. Would be made more so if he knew that he held Mance's son. He would have a hostage against Mance.

That seems very unlikely. If Jon had hostage-value against Mance, Ned wouldn't send him to the Wall but would keep him at a safe distance from Mance. Speaking of that, I think it would also be extremely out of character for Ned to allow Jon to join a military order where Jon could fight against his biological father and could unknowingly become a kinslayer. And anyway, why wouldn't he tell Jon the whole story of his birth to start with?

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11 hours ago, Julia H. said:

Well, it was Brandon, the oldest brother who went after Rhaegar (on behalf of the whole family), and we all know what the result was and what kind of family tragedy Ned had to deal with. Rhaegar allegedly disappeared, too, but even if he had not, it was quite clearly not within Ned's means to go after him (as Brandon's example showed). Soon after that, Ned had to fight a war against the Targaryens in general, which was a much bigger thing than just going after one Targaryen. Then, when the rebellion was over and he found Lyanna, Rhaegar was already dead. 

However, after the rebellion, Ned, as the Warden of the North, had every possibility to carry out an investigation in the Night's Watch, find the culprit and punish him (or force him to flee). Remember that Mance at this time is still in the NW for years to come.

Some people have gray hair in their thirties. My grandfather was one of those people. He had white hair at the age of 30.

I'm not good at calculating timelines but (therefore) I trust the wiki. This is what I see there and what I think on the basis of that:

Tourney of Harrenhal: 381 AC

Jon Snow was born in 283 AC, so at the time Mance went to Winterfell, he must have been between 3 and 5 years of age.

This is how Mance and Jon remember their meeting in Winterfell:

So Jon remembers Mance as a young black brother. At the time Jon had been a young kid, and young kids don't usually see people in their thirties or late twenties as particularly "young", besides, at the time of remembering, Jon himself is still very young - a teenager. (Another black brother, Benjen Stark, who is around 30 in AGOT is never thought of as currently "young" by Jon.) I don't think life on the Wall is particularly conducive to preserving a youthful look for a long time, therefore I find it likely that Mance wasn't older than in his early twenties, and was possibly younger that that, when he visited Winterfell with Lord Commander Qorgyle. (Ned Stark was in his mid-twenties at the time, and kids usually see their parents and their parents' peers as adults rather than young people.) In that case, five, six or seven years earlier Mance had been a teenager, perhaps a rather young teenager. In addition to his young age, he was wildling-born and untrained in the ways of the South, therefore it seems very unlikely that he was given the opportunity to represent the Night's Watch on his own at an event where the greatest lords of the realm, including the royal family, gathered. 

That seems very unlikely. If Jon had hostage-value against Mance, Ned wouldn't send him to the Wall but would keep him at a safe distance from Mance. Speaking of that, I think it would also be extremely out of character for Ned to allow Jon to join a military order where Jon could fight against his biological father and could unknowingly become a kinslayer. And anyway, why wouldn't he tell Jon the whole story of his birth to start with?

I still don't understand why Ned would hunt down Lyanna's lover and kill him, especially if he's the father of Ned nephew. He may not have raised Jon as a hostage either, as he did Theon. Who Rob sends to Winterfell to take it for him, despite Theon being a hostage against his father. Mistakes happen. He may have simply raised Jon as his own rather than acknowledging a Wildling pulling Bael on the house again. They didn't tell the original Bael's son. 

 Jon also chooses to go to the Wall on his own to the surprise of Eddard. Jon is a man though, and under the current narrative, is a threat to Robb and Cat's other children's claim to the Lordship. So letting him go to the Wall where his destiny is, may have been something Ned felt he couldn't prevent. We are given enough explanation in the legend of Bael with out really having to seek further for explanation behind Eddards actions. Original Stark who was father by a Bael was also lied to by his "foster father" and allowed to face his father at the Wall and kinslay anyways.

You also said it yourself, Mance was still a blackbrother by the time Jon was around 5. So for a while, Mance displayed no plans towards King Beyond the Wall. We know his plans had to be earlier because Tormunds plans were, yet Tormund after proving himself Bael, never leads an army against the Wall. Because Mance had already countered him.

There is more going on at the Wall than it appears. With Bael, Tormund, and possibly Mance taking brides south of the Wall, and Nights watchmen, taking wildlings and fathering people like Crastor and Mance.  With the original gate beneath the Nightfort being used to trade children. 

Weird how Mance wants into the Crypts and Jon keeps having visions of the crypts. Like, what ever is in there, is tied to both men and their fates/destinies. 

Mance was born at the Wall and closer to the Watch than most men. Plus Mance say's he's tasted Summerwines (Not found north of the Neck) and Dornishman's wives (Which he switches in the song later to a Northmans' wife when hiding as Abel/Bael). He is a singer, to which there was a Tourney of Singers, and a good candidate to send. As a leader, he has a commanding voice also. Plus there are more than one wandering crow. Mance could very easily be the same age as Lyanna, in their mid 30s. Making him not only of the same age as Lyanna, unlike Rhaegar, but unlike Rhaegar. He's not nobility, and he's not married with children. He's of the north like her, and would love a free spirited woman like Lyanna far more than some Targaryen lordling of the south. Mance would have better access to winter blue roses, especially after visiting Winterfell at least 3x, twice in disguise. "A mummer's" trick. "Beware the mummer's dragon". (or the mummer is Varys, or the Mummer is F/aegon. Mance is a mummer too though.) Mance has historical ties and possible blood ties to the original Bael the Bard, plus the Bael legend is a cultural myth of the Wildlings that is a possible right of passage to be king even. 

There is more reason's it fits Mance than it ever does Rhaegar Targaryen. 

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