Is Rhaegar alive?!?

[Lord Joker Of FunLand]

I dont buy it BUT if this is true GRRM could create a good explaination for it without being illogic Since we werent there (pov) to see it, Rhaegar built up lot of expectation with his prophecy crazyness just to die as a dog.

That created the rebellion, which sets up literally everything in this series.

[MyLittleFinger]

The biggest thing against these "X-Y-Z is alive and a part of a convoluted conspiracy to enable their existence" is that nobody thinks like a human. Nobody ever seems to think about the HUMAN element.

Your family is dead, your son and wife murdered, your daughter stabbed 300 times to a bloody husk, your mistress/second wife dies and the son is shipped off, your best friend is dead all your friends are dead ALL BECAUSE OF YOU...but nah, you had the plan all along, you never fight and run to the Night's Watch and pretend to be a new recruit, then when you have a second you escape and become King Beyond the Wall after a few years to...invade that Kingdom that was yours for the taking if you HAD fought?

What?

It's absurd.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

I really don't see why it is such a sacrilege to say Rhaegar is alive, and Mance, but R+L=J is so commonly accepted.

R+L=J is always denied by Eddard, the only one who really knows all about Jon. He says he's his son. From Wylla. I don't say that I don't believe r+l, but this is a crackpot theory with lots of "proof" against it. Mance Rhaegar has no real proof against it. Only a shitload of perfect connections. It's far more obvious than the r+l thing, and that says something.

<snip

Always denied by Ned? I must have missed when other characters went up to him and asked "Hey Stark, is that your sister's boy? The one she had with Rhaegar?"

Actually Ned does not once in AGoT say that Jon is his son. He doesn't even say that Wylla is his mother. He answers Robert's question in a way that allows Robert to continue thinking Jon is his (Ned's) but what he doesn't say is as important as what he does. He could easily have answered the king with "Jon's mother? Her name was Wylla. You know, your memory sucks, your grace."

[Lady Blizzardborn]

The biggest thing against these "X-Y-Z is alive and a part of a convoluted conspiracy to enable their existence" is that nobody thinks like a human. Nobody ever seems to think about the HUMAN element.

Your family is dead, your son and wife murdered, your daughter stabbed 300 times to a bloody husk, your mistress/second wife dies and the son is shipped off, your best friend is dead all your friends are dead ALL BECAUSE OF YOU...but nah, you had the plan all along, you never fight and run to the Night's Watch and pretend to be a new recruit, then when you have a second you escape and become King Beyond the Wall after a few years to...invade that Kingdom that was yours for the taking if you HAD fought?

I think you're missing a few tenets of the theory. Admittedly it can be challenging to see things from a fictional character's perspective.

If Rhaegar is Mance he was not planning to invade Westeros and conquer it with Wildlings. Mance led the Wildlings to the Wall because they wanted in where it was safe...away from the Others and the Wight Walkers. With the Wildlings on the south side of the Wall, there are fewer soldiers in The Great Other's army when the attack comes. Becoming King Beyond the Wall to prevent the creation of a massive host of Wildling Wights was a necessary part of fulfilling the prophecy that will save far more lives than were lost in Robert's Rebellion.

[Modesty Lannister]

You make a claim, the burden of proof is on you! All you have are wild speculations....

I add my dismay to Metopheles's one. There is a lot of proof on this thread. It is circumstantial proof, because it cannot be anything else until all the books are written. I'd like to remind you that a lot of characters change their identities in this story and most of them don't use glamour or whatever Faceless men do. Arya cuts her hair, Sansa dyes it, Bran hides in plain sight, just by staying off the King's Road, Varys takes many different identities just by using his acting skills, some makeup and change of clothes, Barristan Selmy hides his identity from Jorah Mormont although the latter saw him in the battle against the Greyjoys and after. Why do all of them manage to hide themselves so successfully? Because they are all either highborn or move in the highest circles and nobody expects to look for them amongst the commoners. The most successful glamour is hiding in plain sight. Also, as far as the population of Westeros knows at the time when book 5 finishes, Arya and Bran are dead. Yet, when we propose the same for another character, people scream crackpot. The latest GRRM description of MR as Abel is: "The singer’s beard was brown, though his long hair had largely gone to grey." Since Targaryans have silver white hair how difficult can it be to dye one's hair. And since everyone thinks RT has been dead for decades who would even try to connect the dots?

[King Benjen II]

I don't think GRRM lied when he said RT was cremated. He may be referring MR "death", but he may also be referring to the very end of the book. I deliberately posted the whole sentence GRRM wrote on the subject, because it shows that he wanted and succeeded to change the subject abruptly. Speaking about creative writing now, GRRM increased the number of RT references throughout books 4 and 5. Why would he do that with a dead character who cannot change anything anymore? He is setting the scene for this big twist and has been doing so since book 1. I cannot wait to read it. I think this is how book 6 may end.

What year was the cremation quote? Pre Dance he may have been referring to "Mance's" burning but we wouldn't know it at the time.

I'm hoping the Mance Rhaegar reveal happens early in TWOW so I don't have to wait 4-5-8 years to read his post reveal storyline.

[Modesty Lannister]

What year was the cremation quote? Pre Dance he may have been referring to "Mance's" burning but we wouldn't know it at the time.

I'm hoping the Mance Rhaegar reveal happens early in TWOW so I don't have to wait 4-5-8 years to read his post reveal storyline.

The Asshai.com Forum Chat happened on July 27, 2008.

ADWD was published in 2011. So, yes, the burning of MR was not known then.

[King Benjen II]

Thanks. Still doesn't mean it wasn't what he was referring to :)

[Modesty Lannister]

Thanks. Still doesn't mean it wasn't what he was referring to :)

I actually think RT will die in the final battle against The Others in book 7 and will be cremated with all honours. I think that is what GRRM was referring to since all the events in ASOIAF are set in the imaginary Middle Ages, they are in the past compared to where we stand.

[Viking]

The biggest thing against these "X-Y-Z is alive and a part of a convoluted conspiracy to enable their existence" is that nobody thinks like a human. Nobody ever seems to think about the HUMAN element.

Your family is dead, your son and wife murdered, your daughter stabbed 300 times to a bloody husk, your mistress/second wife dies and the son is shipped off, your best friend is dead all your friends are dead ALL BECAUSE OF YOU...but nah, you had the plan all along, you never fight and run to the Night's Watch and pretend to be a new recruit, then when you have a second you escape and become King Beyond the Wall after a few years to...invade that Kingdom that was yours for the taking if you HAD fought?

What?

It's absurd.

I agree, that is the problem with the Rhaegar the Superfox = Mance version of the theory. I'm a supporter of the Rhaegar screwed up and then became Mance to escape version of the theory. Rhaegar didn't plot the revolt, he was busy fulfilling his own prophecy when he accidentally contributed to starting the revolt. Remember, Rhaegar is off trying to fulfil the prophecy with Lyanna at TOJ when Rickard and Brandon Stark are killed and Ned is summoned to Kings Landing. The Revolt starts when Jon Arryn refuses to send Ned. Rhaegar is off at TOJ until after the battle of the Bells.

There may have been an impersonator at the Ruby ford or Rhaegar may have been mistaken for somebody else and only presumed dead since Robert said he killed him,floated downstream to the silent isle. At that point everything has gone to shit, prophecy and kingdom, so he goes on the lamb trying to stop the long winter any way he can.

[Viking]

BTW, on the topic of GRRM speaks, has he at any point said that Jon is Ned's Bastard son?

[Metopheles]

Even if I don't believe Rhaegar faces Robert on the trident and fell, you all quote grrm saying Rhaegar was cremated like in targ tradition. Even if it's a long stretch, but it doesn't even say he died. He says he was cremated. Well so was Daenerys. So this answer of grrm is just a trick to make an non-answer. He can't just say : Oh, yea folks, we will see him again, he is alive of course. Shit you know.

I wonder what he answers all the time about R+L=J, and people still claim it to be true.

I can just repeat and repeat my thus far best argument : Anakin Skywalker was killed by Darth Vader. Rhaegar was killed by Mance Rhaegar, metaphorically.

[Sylva Santagar]

So the so called proof is that:

-Mance is a musician, Rhaegar was a musician

-Raider sounds like Rhaegar

-Melisandre saved Mance's life

-There have been people hiding their identities in the series

-Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker

Awesome... it all makes so much sense now.... :rolleyes:

[Viking]

So the so called proof is that:

-Mance is a musician, Rhaegar was a musician

-Raider sounds like Rhaegar

-Melisandre saved Mance's life

-There have been people hiding their identities in the series

-Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker

Awesome... it all makes so much sense now.... :rolleyes:

They are

the same age

the same size and build

they are both interested in music and stories and prophecy

they are both endowed with the same renaissance man style skill set

they love the same colors, black and red

they seem equally proficient at fighting against baratheon led armies

mance's blood is just as royal as jon snow's (affc chapter 5)

mance takes the name able, an anagram of bale the bard who impregnated the daughter of the lord of winterfell

I agree that it isn't a proof, only mathematics has proofs.

[johndance]

do you think that robert hasn't made sure he killed the guy who (at least from robert's point of view) raped the woman he loved?

robert says, in no uncertain terms, that he has killed rhaegar "only once" and he dreams of killing him each night.

no offense intended to OP but this is as crackpot theory as i've heard.

if only GRRM finished ADWD earlier, we might not have had to suffer through all the theoris that arise when readers who eagerly await the next book for years endlessly re-read already published books and see "hidden meaning" in every single thing.

This. Again. This time w/ TWoW. Dude is dead. Anyone thinking otherwise is delusional.

[Metopheles]

A black cloak with three scarlet scraps on it. He was no longer allowed to wear a black cloak with three scarlet scraps on it.

Why not any other color and any other number. Three. Three headed dragon. The sigil of House Targaryen.

How could Mance know all those southron songs. How could he know a song of Dorne. How many dornish have come north of the wall to tell him these songs?

How is it that all these wildlings see money in Jon Snow, why is the bastard of a dead man so valuable to wildlings? Why does Mance accept Jon only because he whines about being treated as a bastard ? How is it that Mance helps and forgives Jon all the time?

[Metopheles]

By the way, why does nobody believe that Stannis is dead ? It is written in the book. Last chapter of Jon in the letter of Ramsay. But all go

"Oh no, but he can't be dead. Stannis is alive. The letter is fake, so obvious"

And they call this theory crackpot ? please.

[Consigliere]

You pose alot of questions. How about providing some answers to those questions that has some basis in the text. I have no problem if MR turns out to be RT. What I do have a problem with is that as it stands this theory requires one to blindly accept too many assumptions that don't have a shred of textual evidence to support them.

[Viking]

You pose alot of questions. How about providing some answers to those questions that has some basis in the text. I have no problem if MR turns out to be RT. What I do have a problem with is that as it stands this theory requires one to blindly accept too many assumptions that don't have a shred of textual evidence to support them.

I agree, it is a hypothesis. Then again, what textual evidence is out there to support R+L=J?

[Consigliere]

I agree, it is a hypothesis. Then again, what textual evidence is out there to support R+L=J?

There is alot of evidence but that discussion should be taken to the R+L=J thread. What I will say is that R+L=J is a circumstantial case based largely on symbolism, subtext and foreshadowing that point to it.

Eta. As I've stated before, my main issue with MR=RT is that it makes too many assumptions that we have to just blindly accept in order for the theory to ring plausible.