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Dunk and Nan


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In ADWD, Bran has this vision:

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After that the glimpses came faster and faster, till Bran was feeling lost and dizzy. He saw no more of his father, nor the girl who looked like Arya, but a woman heavy with child emerged naked and dripping from the black pool, knelt before the tree, and begged the old gods for a son who would avenge her. Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor. A dark-eyed youth, pale and fierce, sliced three branches off the weirwood and shaped them into arrows. 

The popular consensus among fans has been that the couple kissing in the weirwood is Duncan the Tall and Old Nan when she was a young woman. This is mainly because we know Dunk and Egg are heading to Winterfell, and the freakishly-tall Hodor is Nan's great-grandson. But there is one problem with this: the timeline.

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No one really knew how old she was, but his father said she'd been called Old Nan even when he was a boy. She was the oldest person in Winterfell for certain, maybe the oldest person in the Seven Kingdoms. Nan had come to the castle as a wet nurse for a Brandon Stark whose mother had died birthing him. He had been an older brother of Lord Rickard, Bran's grandfather, or perhaps a younger brother, or a brother to Lord Rickard's father. Sometimes Old Nan told it one way and sometimes another. In all the stories the little boy died at three of a summer chill, but Old Nan stayed on at Winterfell with her own children. She had lost both her sons to the war when King Robert won the throne, and her grandson was killed on the walls of Pyke during Balon Greyjoy's rebellion. Her daughters had long ago married and moved away and died. All that was left of her own blood was Hodor, the simpleminded giant who worked in the stables, but Old Nan just lived on and on, doing her needlework and telling her stories.

They Mystery Knight takes place in 212 AC, which would imply that Dunk visits Winterfell not long afterwards. Based on the Stark family tree, the Brandon Nan would have come to Winterfell to nurse was the son of Willam Stark, and therefore Lord Beron's grandson. According to a fan report, Beron is on his death bed by the time DnE reach Winterfell, and is only in his 30s. (Interestingly, the SSM mentions nothing about a succession crisis, so I'm not sure where that idea came from?) Beron died young, so chances are his second son, Willam, would still be a child at the time of his death. If that's the case, then the woman in Bran's vision isn't Nan, since she wouldn't have come to Winterfell yet.

This opens up a few possibilities:

  1. The early-teen marriage option. Maybe both Beron and Willam were married and had children very young, ala Viserys II, which could conceivably mean that Brandon was an infant by this point. The only problem is that Willam's older brother, Donner, succeeded his father as Lord of Winterfell but died unmarried, so there would have to be some reason why his brother wed before him.
  2. It's just a typo, and Brandon is supposed to be someone else's son. If this were the case, however, it probably would have been corrected in subsequent printings by now.
  3. Dunk and Hodor aren't related and George is just trolling us. Not impossible.
  4. Dunk is related to Hodor but not in the way we think. Perhaps Dunk fell for a different girl at Winterfell, and they had a daughter who later married Nan's son.

 

What are your thoughts? And does anyone know where this idea of a succession crisis came from? (Possibly this post?) And while we're at it, who do you think the other people in Bran's vision are?

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So, Dunk came to Winterfell 80 to 85 years ago. If Nan is in her late 90s then she'd be the right age. We also have Hodor's height. The only conflicting information is Nan's statements about a Brandon. Of course, Nan doesn't always say it the same way does she?

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3 hours ago, Groo said:

So, Dunk came to Winterfell 80 to 85 years ago. If Nan is in her late 90s then she'd be the right age. We also have Hodor's height. The only conflicting information is Nan's statements about a Brandon. Of course, Nan doesn't always say it the same way does she?

There’s only one eligible Brandon though.

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Swan Song part 6/16. A brown-haired girl and a knight as tall as Hodor

 

11 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

But there is one problem with this: the timeline.

11 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

takes place in 212 AC, which would imply that Dunk visits Winterfell not long afterwards. Based on the Stark family tree, the Brandon Nan would have come to Winterfell to nurse was the son of Willam Stark, and therefore Lord Beron's grandson. According to a fan report, Beron is on his death bed by the time DnE reach Winterfell, and is only in his 30s. (Interestingly, the SSM mentions nothing about a succession crisis, so I'm not sure where that idea came from?) Beron died young, so chances are his second son, Willam, would still be a child at the time of his death.

There's no problems with the timeline.

Robb Stark married shortly after turning 16, so in Beron's case if he also married young, then by the time of his death, when he was in his 30s, he could have had teenaged children.

In my opinion, Nan is Beron's daughter Alysanne - 5th out of his 7 children. My guess is that Rodrik - the youngest, at the time of Dunk&Egg's visit to Winterfell was approximately Egg's age (10-13), while Nan was closer to Dunk's age.

I think that Dunk's parents are Daemon I Blackfyre and Daenerys Targaryen, and that he was born in late 194. So in ~212, when Dunk and Nan met, he was ~17-18 years old and she was 

(if Beron got married when he was 16 years old, had his first child a year later, etc., so Nan was born when her father was ~21+ (and Rodrik was born when Beron was ~23+), and he died aged ~30-39, so Nan at that time was - my guess - )

~12-18 years old.

They met in ~212, she got pregnant, Dunk for whatever reason left, and her family married her to Franklyn Frey. So she gave birth to Dunk's twin-children when she was already married with another guy. Then she also had two more children fathered by her husband, so when he died and the other Freys sent Nan away from The Twins, one of her own children was a little baby. And then Willam's wife died after giving birth to Brandon, so the Starks needed a wetnurse, and thus invited Nan back to Winterfell, and she became her nephew's wetnurse. And because she had disgraced her family, by geting pregnant from some no-name hedge knight, and then additionally she was evicted from her dead husband's household, her Stark-relatives allowed her to come back to Winterfell, though not as a member of their family. Then, those people that knew her as Alyanne Stark, all eventually died from old age, and the younger Starks never knew her as anything else, for them she was always just a servant - Old Nan.

Hodor's real name is Walder, because two of Nan's children were Walder Frey's first cousins - Nan's husband, Franklyn Frey, was (Old) Walder's paternal uncle. Hodor/Walder is Old Walder's first cousin twice removed.

Besides Hodor, Dunk and Nan also had other descendants - Brienne and her mother - Pretty Meris, the Hound and the Mountain; Dunk's other descendants (Tanselle-Too-Tall) - could be members of House Drinkwater, and (Rohanne Webber-Lannister/The Ghost of High Heart/Jenny's Woodswitch) - Jenny of Oldstones and her children - Melisandre (her father is Duncan the Small), Sera (Illyrio's wife) and Varys (their father was Maelys Blackfyre).

Though, those are just my guesses.

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58 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

@Ran Do you have any insights you can share with us?

I don't think GRRM has ever said more than that there may be a descendant of Dunk's in ASoIaF, and possibly his admitting that Brienne is descended from Dunk but that the hows and whys are yet to be revealed. I know of nothing where he says there are "several" descendants of Dunk... though presumably if Dunk's offspring ended up in the line of Tarth, than I guess Lord Selwyn is also descended of Dunk.

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2 hours ago, Megorova said:

In my opinion, Nan is Beron's daughter Alysanne - 5th out of his 7 children.

So . . . she's been at Winterfell for so long that everyone has somehow forgot that she's a Stark and no one realizes Hodor is also a Stark? . . . . . . OK

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22 hours ago, Groo said:

So . . . she's been at Winterfell for so long that everyone has somehow forgot that she's a Stark

No, obviously not.

If she was allowed to return to Winterfell as a mere servant, not as a family member (because she disgraced them), then - yes, everyone was treating her as a servant, not as an equal. So the kids - those that were born already after Alysanne left Winterfell, didn't knew her as anything else, just Nan - wet-nurse of Willam's dead son - Brandon. They were all born already after her return - Brandon was Willam's oldest; his other kids - Edwyle and Jocelyn, and Alysanne's other nephews and nieces - Brandon and Benjen, Branda and Lyarra, they were all born already after the first Brandon died. So none of them knew that Nan used to be not just a servant, not just a wet-nurse of their dead half-brother(/cousin).

Apparently Donnor died before Nan's return. Willam and Artos both died in 226. There's no information about Berena or Errold, possibly they died young. And Nan's younger brother - Rodrik, migrated to Essos. So by 226, when the next generation of Starks were still kids, all of Alysanne's siblings, those who knew who she really is, were already dead. And those kids weren't even born when she got married and left Winterfell (and her siblings never talked about her, because they sort of evicted her from their family, and sent her away and married her off to an old widower from Riverlands), and when she returned they also weren't even born yet. So they always knew her only as a servant - Nan.

If Edwyle didn't knew that Nan is his aunt, then how could he have told to his son Rickard and his grandchildren - Ned, etc.; that Nan is their relative, and also a Stark? He couldn't.

That's why the Starks of the next generations after Willam's didn't knew who Nan really was. And the other people from their household, those that knew Nan in her youth, as Alysanne, all died long ago. That's why no one knows what Nan's family-name is, and why no one even knew that Hodor is also partially Stark, by blood.

22 hours ago, Groo said:

 and no one realizes Hodor is also a Stark? . . . . . . OK

Actually, considering that Nan (possibly) was married with Franklyn Frey, and her son is Hodor's paternal grandfather, it means that Hodor's last-name is Frey, not Stark.

My guess is that Nan had at least four children, the first two - a set of twins, a boy and a girl, were fathered by Dunk, and were born already after Nan got married with Franklyn. So if he accepted those kids and acknowledged them as supposedly his, then officially they were Freys. Though, if he didn't acknowledged them, then they could have been either Snow/s or Rivers/es. So Hodor is either a Frey, or a Snow, or Rivers, not a Stark.

P.S. And his actual name is Walder, because it's their family name - they are Freys. Nan's husband - Franklyn Frey, was an older brother of Walder Frey's father, so Nan is Walder Frey's aunt. And Old Walder knows who she really is.

Could be Walder's first wife - Perra Royce, was one of Alysanne's/Nan's granddaughters. Nan had two children fathered by Dunk, and at least two more - a son and a daughter, fathered by Franklyn. Then Franklyn's (or Dunk's) daughter married with a member of House Royce (because Nan's/Alysanne's mother was a member of House Royce - Lorra Royce. See - Perra, Lorra? ;)), and their daughter - Perra Royce, who was Walder's first cousin once removed, became his first wife. That's why amongst Walder's descendants with Perra there's two Aegons ("Jinglebell" and "Bloodborn"), Emmon (Aemon), Aenys, Rhaegar and Robert (like King Robert, who was partially Targaryen thru his grandmother). GRRM inserted those Valyrian-like names into the Freys' family tree as clues that they are bloodrelated to the Targaryens/Blackfyres.

Nan's two children fathered by Dunk are dragonseeds by blood, because Dunk's parents were Daenerys Targaryen and Daemon I Blackfyre. And Nan's two children fathered by Franklyn, including the mother of Perra Royce, were half-siblings of those dragonseeds - Hodor's paternal grandfather and Brienne's maternal great-grandmother. So Perra Royce's great-grandson - Robert Frey is actually distantly related to Robert Baratheon. And there's many other small clues everywhere on the family trees of ASOIAF's characters. And GRRM is going to use all those clues for the later reveals about who is who. That's if he will ever publish The Book. <_<

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