Kill the Boy

[northern_amnesia]

I posted a theory a while ago, if you care to read a full-fledged theory with lots of quotes and details, you can go here.

What I’m presenting here is just a summary. I'm pretty confident that most of you will not enjoy it, but still, I’m pretty sure I’m right so I wanted to share it.

AGoT is masterfully presented by its prologue, and inevitably, once you realize how much like Jon poor Waymar looked like, you begin to wonder if his blood or his look has something to do with what’s happening in this story. And of course, it does.

Jon’s blood and look are key to understanding what’s going on in the north.

One of the most evident clues we have that this story might be something different from the classic `hero meets maid` story, is Bael’s song.

In that story that pretends to be romantic, we have a character, Bael, that goes to Winterfell thinking on getting revenge. We don’t know who Bael is, and it really doesn’t matter that much, because that’s not the point, the point is that Bael has absolutely no right to Winterfell, but nevertheless his bastard grows up to be the Lord of Winterfell*. And I really want to stress that out, a guy that’s a complete nobody gets his son to become Lord of Winterfell* just to screw Lord Stark*. That’s a powerful vengeance.*

Even if Bael never becomes Lord, he masterfully got away with his vengeance.

Does he prove to be brave? No, of course not. He proves to be far smarter than Lord Stark, and at the end of the day that’s all that matter, brave idiots die like flies all the time. Ask Brandon, or Rhaegar, or Robb. But smart guys, vengeful guys, those die laughing.

The vengeance was never about the maiden, though she clearly agrees. Bael is a usurper in all but name, like Jaime. Robert sat in the throne for over a decade, so what? Cersei's bastards are sitting too, and the throne passed in all but name to the Lannisters, so even when Jaime was never the King, he and Cersei, are the true conquerors. You don’t need to use violence to conquer**.** In fact, that’s the whole point in Jon´s story.

If you think about it***, Bael is far cleverer*** than Robert, or Cat for that matter, because while Robert and Cat felt they were conquerors and that their throne would pass to their children*, is the bastards that are inheriting the earth*. Dany, Tommen, and Jon, are all bastards, all of them sons of “Bael”.

Ruling is boring and puts you on the spot. Bael is not that kind of guy, Bael is a “watcher”, a warrior, but his weapon of choice is a bastard, a baby with no clear rights, and a beautiful and brave woman that helps him accomplish his plans.

Cat, like Robert, loved war, she left Winterfell because she “smelled” blood, and like a shadow cat she couldn´t resist it. She was desperate to be heard, to be considered, she was tired to do what she was supposed to, to obey, to be a “good girl”. And when she widowed, for once, she was free and thought she could do things her way, and of course, like the hero of her own song, did a bunch of stupid things, and died.

Robert on the other hand, was an avenger, he avenged Lyanna on the Trident, and later on King’s Landing, but he left absolutely nothing behind, only chaos. He loved to fight, not to build.

There are a couple of things that of course Bael’s song never mentions but if you, like me, like to analyze the small details, likely will conclude that there are a lot of suspicious events in the tale, that of course are also suspicious in our main tale, how Jon and Dany came to be.

· We are led to believe that Bael came to Winterfell one winter night and later disappeared never to be seen again. Isn’t that exactly what always happens when people refuse to take responsibility for their own actions? I mean, is easier to lay the fault on someone else, on an “other”, an enemy, specially on someone that’s dead and can't defend himself. Like Rhaegar.

· Isn't it a bit easier to believe that in the song it was Lord Stark who got her own daughter pregnant and blamed someone else? An easy enemy, someone “wild” that didn’t follow the rules. Like Robert. How satisfactory it is to have those enemies, right? I mean, are we supposed to believe that some random wildling "heard" what Lord Stark said about him and came to Winterfell during winter just to prove a point and left without proving it*?* He came to prove how brave he was and stayed hidden the whole time! And of course, you could think the exact same opposite about Dany, are we supposed to believe that Rhaella was so lucky that she got pregnant right before she escaped to Dragonstone. Really?

· And of course, we also have to believe that the maiden in the song was so in love with this wildling that dumped her with a baby in her breast that after thirty years of never seeing his face again, decided to commit suicide. Really? Are we going to accept that easily that women are that stupid in this story? Northerner women? Women that are so damned used to death and winters that their “tears freeze”. Isn’t it a bit easier to believe that maybe she was murdered?

If like me, you don’t trust in fairy tales, especially in a world like ASOIAF, then the first clue that we are being sold bullshit is Ned’s tower dream. But you need to think of minor details, mind the little glitches that are all over the dream.

The first clue that the dream is not what it seems, is how is presented by Ned himself. But as the dream progresses, red flags start to appear everywhere, from the landscape to the idea that three men are there waiting in front of a tower, waiting for what? For how long? And then of course is their position, Arthur smiling and with his sword sheathed, Hightower standing fierce but with no sword in sight, and Oswell on one knee sharpening a sword that later completely disappears from the dream, and a helm that makes absolutely no sense.

But the indisputable evidence that the dream can´t be a true recollection of something that happened even remotely as Ned dreams it, is the dialogue that they have, because at all times, Ned seems far more interested on finding out where those men where, than on knowing how the sister that’s allegedly inside the tower is. Not to mention that they apparently talk in a very calm way, but once Hightower mentions the vow they took, everyone starts to fight. Huge red flag right there.

To understand this dream, context is paramount, and so is AGOT’s prologue. Ned, that was on KL on a mission to find Jon Arryn’s murderer, found that the last thing that the victim was doing was investigating Robert’s bastards, so he decides to follow his steps. Coming out of a brothel where he met one of the King’s latest creations, he started thinking how Jon looked so much like him.

The funny thing is that Jon looks exactly as every Stark before Cat came into the family, so he could very well be the son of any Stark. In fact, he could be the son of more than one Stark.

And there’s our first clue, because Cersei’s children look exactly as every single Lannister looked like since forever, and that’s because, as most families, they hardly ever mingled with people outside of their power circle, and since wealthy and powerful people are so few, they ended up marrying cousins, and that’s so close to incest that’s not even worth pointing that out.

The Baratheons have a “strong seed” and every single time they mixed with ‘outsiders’, their “seed” won.

The Stark seed, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be that powerful, most of Ned’s children look like Cat, except for Arya, but you have a 4:1 ratio, that’s a lot. Even the Targaryens that have a very rare seed had a much better ratio than Ned. And then you have Jon, that not only looks like a Stark but has eyes soooooooo grey, that they seem to be black. Come on! That screams incest. That screams lot of Starks in the mix.

I said at the beginning that Jon’s blood and look had a lot to do with Waymar’s murder, and all you need to do is comparing the position of the three kingsguards that await Ned before the tower and the way Waymar dies, and you’ll see.

Back to Ned’s dream context. Coming back to the Red Keep, Ned is ambushed by a very angry Jaime Lannister because Cat took his little brother as a hostage, and what does he do? He kills every single man that accompanied Ned.

Doesn’t that look suspiciously similar to how the ‘tower of joy’ event ended? And of course, is while being unconscious after this attack that Ned has his OLD DREAM.

I used uppercase there because a “dream” is all that he has. Things only happened like that in Ned’s dreams. The reality was far worse than that.

When you start dissecting the dream using AGoT’s prologue as guide and most important, the things that Ned remembers while awake, and things we found out or we can infer because they are in the text, is evident that things didn’t happen even remotely like that.

The truth is, Ned dreams about Lyanna (Arthur), Ashara (Oswell) and his vows (Hightower). The dream is about Jon being born, Ashara committing suicide and the promises that Ned made to himself, not to Lyanna.

Most important, the dream is about the man that really found Lyanna and fathered Jon. And that man was Benjen Stark.

When you carefully read Ned’s memory of Lyanna’s death, you’ll see that she didn’t just die, but was murdered by Ned. And of course, he forgot. He truly did. He forced himself to forget because that wasn’t the kind of man that Ned wanted to be, he wanted to be “good and true”. Ned was an emotion usurper.

He forced himself to be a good guy, he promised that to himself*,* and for a while he was. But as Lyanna wisely told him, nothing can change a “man’s nature”, not even love.

The first clue that Lyanna was murdered is the position of the guards, Arthur has a sad smile, same as Lyanna, Oswell is on his knees and Hightower is standing fierce, that’s exactly how Lyanna died, on her knees, completely defiant and smiling at Jon. That’s what Waymar’s death represent, he died because of his blood and the way he looked like, it was Lyanna the one with the very cold blood and the one that looked way too brave to be tolerated. She died instead of Jon, because Ned didn’t killed children..

Benjen was forced to take the black and forget about his child. But he wasn’t the kind of guy that forgets or forgives. Hell no.

Unlike most fathers in this story Benjen is a truly loving and proud father. And he was very lucky, because magic was on his side, so once he swore his vows, magic happened, and he became three men at once. Of course, this isn’t a random number, the magic in the Wall just brought back (kind of) 2 Starks, Qhorin (Lyanna) and Mance (Brandon).

Just the right amount of Starks needed to set things right and on track again. To keep the magic standing.

The thing is that Ned not only killed poor Lyanna, stole a baby and his identity, or forced a man to eternal loneliness, he also did something that magic couldn’t bear, he buried Ashara’s corpse in the crypt and that woke up the old powers.

You see, the Starks have been cursed since the Night’s King ruled the Wall, and that curse is hidden on the seemingly innocent words: “there must always be a Stark on Winterfell”. While the NW brothers are forced to be “watchers” their entire lives, the Starks are forced to be watchers after they died. That’s their curse, and Ashara wasn’t a Stark. Ned found her corpse when he went to Dorne to return Arthur’s sword and brought her north.

That’s why Craster is never attacked by the Others or the wights, is not because he kills his boys, that’s just him taking care of the competition, is because he marries his daughters, that’s why he tells the crows: “you best get right with the gods**”** most crows have bastards, and of course most of them won’t even bother on meeting them, not to mention marrying their mothers.

That’s the point on the NW vows, “night gathers” when a man is so absolutely alone in the world that he become a “brother” to another man that’s also completely alone. Like Ned and Robert or Jon and Sam. But the law end at the Wall, and you always have the chance to go to the other side and stop being alone, to find yourself everything that this side of the Wall denied you, all you need to do is forget your old life, and that requires a kind of bravery or amnesia that’s not for everybody.

The most important thing is that you don’t have to care how you are called, a “turncloak”, a “traitor” a “kingslayer”. Your “rite” starts when you kill a ‘lone wolf’ a lonely brother, so your new pack may survive. Killing a man proves that there’s no turning back. That’s true on any side of the Wall, and on any world. Ask Jaime.

Benjen was definitely not the kind that could forgive or forget, and worse, he fiercely loved his son and her mother, so he patiently waited until his moment came.

The point of Qhorin in the story is for us to see what forcing yourself to forget looks like, Qhorin (Lyanna) transforms himself in the “Other” we see in the Prologue and goes around with 5 shadows, the shadows of the 5 dead northerners that of course didn’t die on Dorne, but in Winterfell because they knew too much.

Mance on the other hand, represents what a very practical man looks like. He knows that when faced with certain type of people, there are things that needs to be done but you don’t need to go around screaming injustice, you just need to get things done.

Benjen’s first step was to tell Robert what had happened to Lyanna, and once Jon Arryn died, Robert started his revenge. He gave Ned a lot of chances to come clean, but he refused, and while Robert like a true cold northern died while hunting, Ned died as the traitor he was, doomed to be forgotten and forbidden. Like the Night’s King.

I absolutely adore that the first time that we meet Benjen, Jon gets instantly happy, and a few moments later, his ‘uncle’ calls him “son” but not like Ned “for all the north to hear”, just for Jon to hear it.

Benjen is the good kind of oath breaker, the kind of guy that breaks an oath because is the right thing to do. Because family comes first, long before than duty or honor. But since poor Jon is so damned blinded by Ned’s white as snow image, drastic measures were needed. And the ploy begins.

The whole point of ‘recruiting’ Jon to the Night’s Watch is to force him to see what he couldn’t or wouldn’t see on Winterfell.

The nicest thing about Jon’s story is that his father, and magic, goes to extreme measures for him, to prove him that he is loved and that it doesn’t matter what the others think about how he was born, he’s so damn important to his family that Qhorin (Lyanna) willingly died for him like a hero. He’s so important that Mance (Benjen) took an oath that doomed him to be all alone for the rest of his life, and pretended to be keeping it, only to break it first chance he had and do what needed to be done, calling him "son". But poor Jon was blind.

Jon takes his oath and that very night, he starts seeing, because that’s the night that Othor and Flowers corpses are found.

The mysterious death of those men makes Mormont, and Jon of course, realize that something is very wrong beyond the wall. The north is remembering, and you are not supposed to do that.

The corpses allow us to realize that some things are very wrong south of the Wall.

· Othor and Flowers rise in the middle of the night and while Flowers goes on a rampage killing five brothers (Ned’s dream anyone?), Othor goes straight to Mormont’s chambers and passes right in front of Jon’s door, he even kills the guard that Jon had been given for his bad behavior. Yet Jon seems completely invisible to the wight.

· Jon brought back a couple of corpses much later while he was the Lord Commander, but the dead men, stubbornly refused to raise. Why? Well, Jon corpses are chained, and apparently as Ned told us, iron is good to keep vengeful spirits dead. But, of course, Jon’s dead men died from the cold, not murdered. And that’s exactly what AGoT’s prologue tells us, the wildlings didn’t die from the cold, because in that case, they would have stay dead where they were, but they “moved camp”, because they were murdered. Like Waymar, and Lyanna, and Jon.

Othor goes straight after Mormont, completely ignoring the rest, and killing whatever stands on his way, that’s Benjen searching for Lyanna, and Jon going to find the "creature" that promised to cut his bastard heart.

We know that Lyanna disappeared on the Trident, and we know that “someone” went to tell Brandon what happened. That someone clearly knew where Brandon was, that “someone” was Benjen. While Brandon, like Flowers killed a bunch of men, (his father and the poor guys that went with him to KL), Benjen, as Othor went for the head, Lyanna.

Rhaegar didn’t kidnapped Lyanna because he had a romantic interest in her, he took her to get her brother’s head.

Jaime was the first one that fall, the “green head”, then Brandon the “white head”, and the last head was Aegon. The kid was born to be sacrificed.

When Rhaegar was a boy, he decided that he had to be a warrior because of “something he read” (like a pink letter) that was clearly related to the “Prince that was Promised” prophecy, and it seems that the prophecy is related to Bael’s song. Rhaegar came to the same conclusion that I'm presenting, that the moral of that story is that the "true blood" would extinct and a bastard would inherit the throne. unless extreme measures where taken.

Rhaegar was of course a “promised” prince, because unlike dozens of generations of dragons, he decided that he would rather have blood over magic.

Since he didn't wanted to choose between him and his father, he decided to end the prophecy, and “beheaded” the Lannisters and the Starks. But his plans had started long before that, because he married Elia because she was a sickly woman, not despite that, a woman like Elia would likely have week children, children that you wouldn’t regret having to sacrifice, it was a mercy really.

When Rhaegar goes to the Trident to face Robert, he leaves Aegon under Aerys “care”, but Rhaella and Viserys are sent to Dragonstone because they would be safe there, specially Viserys, his safety was paramount. The moment that Rhaegar dies, Aerys knew that all was lost, and therefore he ordered to “burn them all”, meaning the Lannisters, the Starks, Rheagar’s ‘family’ and anything standing between him and this bloody prophecy. Unfortunately for Aerys and Rhaegar, Jaime loved his own father too.

I believe that Elia somehow knew what was happening and like Gilly, she made sure that her child survived, and that Aegon is exactly who he says he is. Poor kid.

Of course, all of Rhaegar’s efforts were masterfully undone by Dany, and when she killed the “dragon” Viserys, magic was on her side. I think is obvious that Dany isn’t Aerys daughter, but Hightower’s. All our bastards are “watchers” offspring.

Back to our main bastard, Jon.

Jon goes beyond the Wall with his brothers and the first wildling he meets is Craster, a guy that marries his daughters, kills his sons, and is a doubtful friend to the watch. He’s basically every enemy of our heroes combined.

When the watch arrives at the Fist of the First Men, and by the way, our “first man” in the novels was Gared, the guy that lost his little finger, Ghost finds a horn and a bunch of weapons made of dragonglass or frozen fire. The funny thing about “dragonglass” is that it is a “glass” and that means it reflects things, and Jon is nothing but Dany’s reflection, his opposite.

Next, Jon meets another opposite, Qhorin. That brother is “Lyanna come again” thanks to the magic in the Wall and the NW vows.

The magical vows created two men form Benjen:

• Qhorin is “the sword in the darkness” / the light that brings the dawn, an opposite to Lyanna and Dany

• Benjen is “the watcher on the walls” / the horn that wakes the sleepers, an opposite to Jaime Lannister and Joffrey

• Mance is “the fire that burns against the cold”/ the shield that guards the realms of men, an opposite of Rhaegar and of course Jon

Like in Bael’s song, and like what truly happened with Lyanna, Qhorin gives his life so Jon may live, and gives him a very important mission, remember who and what you are, and watch. Now Jon is ready to meet the one true King, Mance.

The thing is, Jon gets completely lost in the mission because he doesn’t have a clue of who or what he is, like Dany. But Jon is a smart boy, and he learns.

When he meets Mance, the wildling tells him why he left the Wall, he was on a ranging where he got hurt and a woman helped him, and gave him her “greatest treasure”, but when he went back to the Shadow Tower, they expected him to forget what happened, and of course, he couldn’t, so he left for a place “where a kiss was not a crime”. And of course, that ‘criminal’ kiss makes you think of incest, but a brother’s “crime” is having a wife and children that he refuse to forget.

Mance made his choice, he decided that he wanted a family, and that meant being perceived as a “traitor” a “turncloak”. The Night’s Watch is like this bachelor’s club where you are expected to die alone just to prove a point.

Jon gets back to the Wall, he chooses his “brothers” over Ygritte because they were just too different, not because of any duty. Later he obviously misses her, but deep down what he misses is not being alone, not Ygritte, is being loved what felt good, even if she was the wrong person for him.

Is very interesting how oedipal is the battle for the Wall, because if you think about it, a “wall” is where ‘the’ Stark of Winterfell ends up, and it seems like Jon and Mance fight against each other for a place on that wall, until an “other” shows up, Stannis, and they come to a standstill. But of course, they really come together when the Boltons have the boldness of claiming that Winterfell is theirs now. The audacity…

Mance goes to Winterfell to do the things that Jon can’t do because he means to keep true to his word, to keep his vows. And of course, enough is enough, is time for the bastard to stop messing around, he needs to decide.

 

So I will have an answer from you, Lord Snow, and I will have it now. Are you a brother of the Night's Watch … or only a bastard boy who wants to play at war?"

T

he bastard letter gives Jon a second chance, now that he saw, does he want to be a lonely brother of the Night’s Watch or a bastard playing at war?

 

Jon Snow straightened himself and took a long deep breath. Forgive me, Father. Robb, Arya, Bran … forgive me, I cannot help you. He has the truth of it. This is my place. "I am … yours, my lord. Your man. I swear it. I will not run again."

The Old Bear snorted. "Good. Now go put on your sword."

 

Jon makes his choice, only this time**,** he chooses not to put on his sword.

 

Jon reached for Longclaw, but his fingers had grown stiff and clumsy. Somehow, he could not seem to get the sword free of its scabbard.

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air, the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end.

When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …

Right there we have everything that happens in Ned’s tower dream, Arthur’s sheathed sword, that apparently, he has no intention to use until the vow is mentioned. Iron, as I said, is good to keep vengeful spirits dead. Jon falls to his knees (as Oswell is when Ned sees him), and wrench free a dagger, like the blade that Whent seems to be sharpening. His wound smokes, like Hightower’s sigil. Jon’s last words are “Ghost, stick them with the pointy end”, and the dream’s pointy end is “we swore a vow"

The bastard letter vow is I will cut out your bastard’s heart and eat it.

Jon’s death is a “tower dream” his dream of being a “true” Stark.

[A_upton]

Excellent thread, really well referenced and backed up with different quotes, loved it