The Jon's Parentage Re-Read 2

[Shewoman]

If that's so, JT, why doesn't Ned tell Jon earlier who his mother is? And I'm not quite clear why Lyanna would want Jon to know he was a Targaryen (assuming R+L=J). Before Ned found Lyanna, Rhaegar died in a war over who would sit the Iron Throne. Would she want their son to risk a similar fate? Even if he's a bastard, he could be used by pro-Targites in Westeros to try to restore the old royal line. She couldn't have known that Robert, with two reasons to want a child of Rhaegar's dead (jealousy over Lyanna and fear for his own throne), would die before Jon reached adulthood.

We know that Ned made more than one promise to Lyanna. If revealing Jon's heritage to him was one, what was the other/others? You referred to "broken promises" above. Does Ned think of more than one?

[Jon Targaryen]

If that's so, JT, why doesn't Ned tell Jon earlier who his mother is? And I'm not quite clear why Lyanna would want Jon to know he was a Targaryen (assuming R+L=J). Before Ned found Lyanna, Rhaegar died in a war over who would sit the Iron Throne. Would she want their son to risk a similar fate? Even if he's a bastard, he could be used by pro-Targites in Westeros to try to restore the old royal line. She couldn't have known that Robert, with two reasons to want a child of Rhaegar's dead (jealousy over Lyanna and fear for his own throne), would die before Jon reached adulthood.

We know that Ned made more than one promise to Lyanna. If revealing Jon's heritage to him was one, what was the other/others? You referred to "broken promises" above. Does Ned think of more than one?

I guess earlier it would be dangerous to tell Jon. And once Jon is with the Watch, Ned is down south and probably does not want to risk a raven. So I assume he would tell Jon once Stannis took the throne and Ned returned to Winterfell.

I have no clue as to what the other broken promise(s) could be. The quote is "he dreamed of blood and broken promises" iirc.

[Zoë Sumra]

Shewoman, "I promise to keep Jon safe" and "I promise I will tell Jon you and Rhaegar are his parents" are, for the first part of Jon's life at least, mutually exclusive.

Very few children are good enough liars to keep a secret if they know it's a secret. Very few people of any age are good enough liars to keep a secret when they're around someone else who knows it - they're constantly aware that someone else knows the thing that nobody else is allowed to know. There's a saying, "Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead" - well, in this instance, if R+L=J, Ned and Howland kept a secret when they were very careful not to spend any further time in each other's company, and therefore unable to discuss it.

Cat's hostility to Jon was, in effect, a very useful front; even if anyone had reason to wonder if Jon were really Ned's son, Cat's reaction to Jon would seal it. If Cat had suddenly learnt that Jon was not Ned's son, she might have found it difficult to continue to treat him like the bastard she didn't want around. It would have been worse if Ned had told Jon, because Jon might not have been able to act convincingly like Ned's son any more, and his temptation to ask Ned further details might have been too much to resist. The only solution would seem to be for Ned to tell him when he was an adult - and Ned didn't live that long.

[AHackeySackOfIceAndFire]

Shewoman, "I promise to keep Jon safe" and "I promise I will tell Jon you and Rhaegar are his parents" are, for the first part of Jon's life at least, mutually exclusive.

Very few children are good enough liars to keep a secret if they know it's a secret. Very few people of any age are good enough liars to keep a secret when they're around someone else who knows it - they're constantly aware that someone else knows the thing that nobody else is allowed to know. There's a saying, "Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead" - well, in this instance, if R+L=J, Ned and Howland kept a secret when they were very careful not to spend any further time in each other's company, and therefore unable to discuss it.

Cat's hostility to Jon was, in effect, a very useful front; even if anyone had reason to wonder if Jon were really Ned's son, Cat's reaction to Jon would seal it. If Cat had suddenly learnt that Jon was not Ned's son, she might have found it difficult to continue to treat him like the bastard she didn't want around. It would have been worse if Ned had told Jon, because Jon might not have been able to act convincingly like Ned's son any more, and his temptation to ask Ned further details might have been too much to resist. The only solution would seem to be for Ned to tell him when he was an adult - and Ned didn't live that long.

this is a fantastic point. i think it ties Ned's relationship with Cat very neatly to R + L = J. but it makes me a bit more confused. how many relationships, how many lives for that matter do you think Ned has sacrificed to keep this a secret? what else has he done? and is it worth it?

[BrainFireBob]

That's roughly the point of Ned.

I think you can say, despite his fascination with knights, that Martin is disenchanted with shame cultures vs. guilt cultures- or if you prefer, honor-cultures vs. morality cultures. We see this with Jaime, we see this with Sandor, but I believe we also see this with Ned.

Despite the sympathy we feel for Ned, I think the description of him as a cold killer, etc., is correct- we simply don't see those situations.

To Ned, "worth it" is irrelevent to questions of honor, almost entirely. He'll do terrible things in the name of honor, though he regrets them.

[AHackeySackOfIceAndFire]

That's roughly the point of Ned.

I think you can say, despite his fascination with knights, that Martin is disenchanted with shame cultures vs. guilt cultures- or if you prefer, honor-cultures vs. morality cultures. We see this with Jaime, we see this with Sandor, but I believe we also see this with Ned.

Despite the sympathy we feel for Ned, I think the description of him as a cold killer, etc., is correct- we simply don't see those situations.

To Ned, "worth it" is irrelevent to questions of honor, almost entirely. He'll do terrible things in the name of honor, though he regrets them.

i think that's a vast misrepresentation. what terrible things has he done in the name of honor?

if R + L = J, then these things are not done in the name of honor. they are done in the name of saving Jon's life.

[Shewoman]

Thanks for the response, Jon T.

Eloisa, very good points (especially about Catelyn and Jon).

A Hackey Sack, how many lives has Ned sacrificed to keep the secret? The KG don't count; he hadn't spoken with Lyanna yet so I'm thinking he didn't know the secret yet. Is anyone else--other than Rhaegar and Lyanna--dead because of this?

And could you distinguish for me shame cultures v. guilt cultures? Not to mention honor and morality cultures? In general, we speak of honor/shame cultures, so I'm not sure how you're using the terms independently of each other. I'm not saying you're wrong to do so; I'm just confused. I often am. You can use Ned, Jaime, or Sandor to illustrate.

[BrainFireBob]

Honor cultures and shame cultures would be the same- adherence to the public standard, and public revelation of failure to comply, are abhorred and desired respectively.

Guilt cultures focus on morality- it's about what's right and wrong on an individual level, not about social scorn or castigation. Hence why the stocks wouldn't be a dreaded punishment today.

Ned embodies rigid honor- he's uncompromising and harsh. Does he ask why the man deserted the Watch? No, he just beheads him. Does he deny the order of his king to slay Lady? No, because honor is obedience within feudalism. Don't get me wrong- I like Ned. But I think he's the contrast of Sandor- Sandor publicly reviles the purported honor of the knights as being without morality, while Ned- and Stannis, after Ned's death- reveal the inflexible, cold rigidity that actually following living up to honor codes creates. Same point from opposite sides.

[Mezeh]

By the way in his last chapter Ned thinks about Jon and about things he had to say to him. Yet he asks Varys if he would read his latter. The only reason for this question is that the information for Jon would be dangerous to reveal. And the information almost for sure included Jon’s mother name. So we return here to the same point. Wylla or even Ashara names wouldn’t be safe for Varys to know. But if Jon’s mother was Lyanna…

[A wilding]

By the way in his last chapter Ned thinks about Jon and about things he had to say to him. Yet he asks Varys if he would read his latter.

Technically Ned asked if Varys would send a letter, Varys volunteered the information that he would read it.

[Mezeh]

Varys just was clever enough to answer Ned’s next question before he asked it.

[Maia]

Wylla was talking about Jon to others a long time after Ned had left. If it was a cover story she would have no doubt stuck to it even if she met Jon just as she mentioned it to Edric Dayne, probably when he asked if she ever had a child of her own.

She wouldn't lie to Jon if she is a Targaryen loyalist and/or feels that she owes it to the dead, as seems fairly likely. Ned's purposes and those of the Daynes / their trusted retainers wouldn't agree beyond the fact that both wanted to keep Jon alive and hidden while he was a child. But their ideas about Jon's future as an adult would have been radically different. So, Ned can't risk Jon trying to contact Starfall or Wylla in particular.

About the "broken promises": I strongly suspect that Ned allowing / forcing Jon to join NW in ignorance of his heritage would have been one of them. In fact, I doubt that Lyanna would have thought that Jon would be "safe" in NW or hoped for such a future for her child. So, I guess that NW + never telling Jon the truth are sources of Ned's guilt and shame in this context.

[Shewoman]

Good points, Maia--although I doubt that Lyanna specifically asked Ned not to let Jon join the NW.

I've come across something that might shed more light on Elia's poor health. In A Feast for Crows, the first "Captain of the Guards" PoV, Prince Doran remembers that Elia was born a month early and that he understood that that meant she would not live. Obviously, she did survive infancy, but it could be that Selmy is speaking no more than the literal truth when he says that her health was never good. It seems to me that Oberyn commented on her health as well, but I can't find it. We do hear more about her ill health than anything else about her except her death at Gregor Clegane's hands. It makes me wonder if, after the birth of Aegon, she and Rhaegar had a celibate marriage (either because she was unable to bear another child or because she was afraid of the way it might affect her health). I mention this because it would remove the contradiction some see between Lyanna telling Ned that Robert would never be faithful to her and then getting involved with a married man.

[Poobah]

Joining the Nights Watch though could possibly be denying Jon his birthright, if he has one as an R+L offspring, which she may have mentioned with her dying breaths perhaps.

-Poobs

[Shewoman]

Maybe. I have a hard time seeing Lyanna wanting her son to get caught up in the Game of Thrones (by which I don't mean she wouldn't want him to read the novel). Rhaegar was killed by her one-time fiance some time before she died. I don't know if she ever knew of the deaths of her father and oldest brother, but I would think their deaths as well as Rhaegar's would make her want to a child of hers, if she had one, as far away from Kings' Landing as possible.

[Gaston de Foix]

Maybe. I have a hard time seeing Lyanna wanting her son to get caught up in the Game of Thrones (by which I don't mean she wouldn't want him to read the novel). Rhaegar was killed by her one-time fiance some time before she died. I don't know if she ever knew of the deaths of her father and oldest brother, but I would think their deaths as well as Rhaegar's would make her want to a child of hers, if she had one, as far away from Kings' Landing as possible.

I think news of Brandon's death and Rickard's must have come to Rhaegar and Lyanna at the Tower of Joy, probably even before Rhaegar returned to King's Landing. It was an act of monumental stupidity on Rhaegar's part not to think about the political consequences of his "abduction". That being so, I imagine Lyanna's first instinct would be to protect her child's life rather than preserve a throne for him. Really if Jon is Lyanna's son, no other conclusion is as humanly true as the conclusion that Lyanna asked Ned to protect Jon from Robert's wrath.

[Shewoman]

I agree, grinachu.

[Gaston de Foix]

The Case for Doubt

JT has eloquently made the case for Rhaegar and Lyanna as Jon's parents. I don't mean to detract from his arguments when I say that it is a case that has been made in other places on this site, and no doubt in pubs, cons, websites, blogs heatedly. It's certainly the dominant theory, for those who read the books carefully and come to this website, about Jon's parentage. The response from the skeptics has usually foundered on finding alternative identities for his parents, the search usually beginning with "Ned and...." or by trying to work out the logistics and the motives of it. I accept that Ned is Jon's biological father, but even so there's a case to made more generally for doubt which doesn't rely on alternative theories. I've mentioned one or two reasons such as the obviousness of the identity of these two figures for Jon's parentage, and Ned's pre-occupation with Jon at the moment of his death (as opposed to say, Bran his other crippled son) and I'm trying to bring it together in some detail and respond to the counter-arguments on these points. For the moment I want to road test an alternative way of looking at this question.

I want to begin with this proposition. The tourney of the False Spring is generally regarded as starting two different love stories, Rhaegar and Lyanna's and Ned and Ashara's. Neither of these stories ends in happiness. Ned is the only survivor. In an important sense if Jon is Rhaegar and Lyanna's son, Ned's love story is subordinate to Lyanna's, not just because House Dayne is complicit in a cover-up but because Rhaegar and Lyanna's had a child , which in a very old fashioned sense, is a mark and symbol of their love and Ned and Ashara didn't. Conversely if Ned and Ashara had a child and Lyanna didn't (or died while trying to, as I've speculated) Ned's love story while clearly secondary in terms of political consequences, has progressed further than Rhaegar and Lyanna's. We are dealing with two sets of thwarted relationships here, but one matters more than the other whichever set of parents you prioritise. Intuitively that doesn't feel right to me, because both relationships started in the same place and ended at the same place of grief and death and despair. I don't think one relationship mattered more than the other, because I think Ned and Ashara's story is just as interesting in its' own right as whatever emerges about Rhaegar and Lyanna. Do others agree, or do you pretty much see Rhaegar and Lyanna's story as the heart of the tourney of the False Spring?

[Shewoman]

Grinachu--we certainly hear (through Ned's memories) quite a bit about Lyanna--particularly her death in a room that smelled of blood and roses--and nothing about Ashara. The "nothing" may mean that there's something big there that George is waiting to spring on us--but until he does, we're probably going to talk more about R+L because we have a lot of references to them from various people (Ned, of course; Robert, Dany, Selmy, Jorah, Jaime, even Cersei and Bran). For Ned and Ashara, we have Catelyn's and Cersei's suspicions and the stories of not-born-at-the-time Meera and Edric Dayne. However, it is impossible that BOTH couples produced Jon, so if our interest is in his parentage, ultimately we will be focusing on whoever (and it may not be either of these couples) we discover his parents to be. On this issue, therefore, we will not be equally interested in a couple that produced Jon and one that didn't.

Ned and Ashara may have an interesting story, but so far we don't know it. We have very little to talk about here.

Why do you think that Ned is Jon's biological father?

[Jon Targaryen]

I don't think one relationship mattered more than the other, because I think Ned and Ashara's story is just as interesting in its' own right as whatever emerges about Rhaegar and Lyanna.

Well, we simply don't have as much information or even, I would guess, *possible* information on Ned and Ashara compared to Rheagar and Lyanna. As Shewoman says, there is Catelyn, Cersei, Edric Dayne, and Meera. Each have a small mention of Ashara and only the hearsay of Edric and Meera explicitly point to an actual relationship. Most importantly of all for me, Ned does not think of Ashara. So I wouldn't say it matters a "very, great deal" anymore to Ned (whereas something to do with Lyanna does).

I think there were lots of things going at the Harrnehal Tourney. I think the KOLT (as I see the KOLT) had the most political consequences for sure. I don't know what you mean by "heart" exactly. I think there were a bunch of things going on there.