So was Lyanna stupid or something?

[Dragonfish]

Is there anything that explains why Rhaegar didn't intercede when Aerys was toasting Rickard and choking Brandon? Was he not in KL at the time?

No, he was not in King's Landing at the time.

[Alia of the knife]

I don't think this interpretation really works, given that he uses both Brandon and Lyanna as examples of people whose wolf's blood led to their downfall. Was Brandon being an unconventional female too?

The lesson, as I see it, was not to be too rash and impulsive. Lyanna's stint as the KotLT might qualify as an example of this, but I don't think Ned would single this event out as the thing that led to her death simply because it got her noticed by Rhaegar. Ned's quote only makes sense to me if she was somehow a direct instigator of the events that led to her death.

Noooo, I think that analogy applies to each character differently.

Was Brandon impulsive to go only with his friends to KL, rather than wait upon the counsel of his Father?

Yes, but was he also perhaps scared for Lyanna, and goverened by his emotions, just as Lyanna was goverened by hers in fighting for Reed?

Yes.

Certainly going to KL and challenging the ruling family was not done, even if it was his right to do so.

If we equate the emotional with "wolfs blood," the same can be said of Ned, though his emotional response in protecting Jon was more methodical, but nonetheless, just as dangerous.

If we equate that analogy with just "wildness," then yes, we can assume that Brandon died because of it, as well as Lyanna, and the only answer to that is to conform, and don't make waves,( i.e., Sansa).

As I've said before, people are going to take different things from what they read. :dunno:

[Alia of the knife]

The following is just my observations regarding my own experiences with teenage girls, having been one myself long ago, and having a teenage daughter.

Much has been made of Lyanna's willful and independent spirit (her 'wolf's blood') and her basic intelligence and pragmatism in seeing clearly who/what Robert truly was. I have seen this put forward as evidence that it is unlikely she would have gone off with Rhaegar willingly, or at minimum, that she could/should have been able to foresee the potential direness of the consequences if she did. It has also been argued that, being the strong minded and realistic northern girl she was, it would have been less likely for her to fall head over heels for Rhaegar and be willing to risk everything for him.

I would like to point out that, in my experience, the possibility/probability that Lyanna was that strong willed and forward thinking northern girl, does not at all cancel out the possibility or even likelihood that she would have found herself turning into a romantic, slightly obsessed, love-struck girl when it came to Rhaegar. When I was 14, I was a strong willed, well read, straight A teen, who had scoffed heartily at other girls' romantic foibles and thought what fools they were to risk defying parents and social scorn by falling for boys in a very public and seemingly foolish way.

That is, until I met my OWN star-crossed love. He was 17, very definitely from the wrong side of the tracks, a "bad boy" in every sense of the term, and as inappropriate a guy as I could have picked to fall for. My parents hated him on sight which, of course, only intensified my determination to prove that our love was the real deal. I even remember thinking what an amazing coincidence it was that we were the same ages as Romeo and Juliet (yes, I got THAT ridiculous over him) and I jistified a great deal of our drama-filled relationship by comforting myself with all the stories of lovers who had been unjustly separated by circumstance. Needless to say, the whole thing ended badly as a startling lesson that maybe there was a reason why bad boys were labeled that way, and that while opposites might attract, they are also known to repel.

My daughter (now 18) had a similar experience. At 15, despite being just as headstrong and pragmatic as she could be, she fell in "love" with a boy who was utterly unsuited to her in every way. At the time, she was also obsessed with the Twilight books, and soon had herself convinced of all the parallels between her own romance and Edward/Bella. Because I remembered how my parents' condemnation of my teenage love jad only made me more stubbornly determined to prove them wrong, I kept my mouth firmly shut about my daughter's boyfriend, trusting to her own basic good sense and intelligence to rescue her; which it thankfully did fairly quickly. But I had some sleepless nights praying that she would not decide she had to be like Bella in every way possible and inflict me with a grandchild named "Renesmee."

I could give other examples from my teenage friends and hers, but I think this makes the point and now I would like to tie it to the story at hand.

Regardless of how smart, levelheaded, or strong willed Lyanna may have been, she was still a teenage girl. I aubmit that she could easily have possessed all those traits and more, and still fallen hopelessly, ridiculously in love with Rhaegar. Here is a man who is the complete antithesis of everything she has ever known. While northern men are practical, Rhaegar is romantic. Northern men are obsessed with duty and honor, Rhaegar is a mysterious prince obsessed with a fairy-tale-ish prophecy that he feels he must fulfill to avert disastrous, mysterious consequences to the realm. He must have seemed like a fairy tale come to life to Lyanna. She is already unhappy about the sensible, practical marriage that has been arranged for her, with a man who seemed to her to lack everything that Rhaegar was, while Rhaegar was everything that Robert was not.

I do not doubt for a moment that Lyanna had grown up hearing the tale about the Rose of Winterfell and how she loved her unsuitable suitor so much, she was willing to live with him in the crypts below Winterfell just to be with him, defying all her family's wishes and utterly unconcerned about their silly panic over what had become of her (because look, they were all a-dither over nothing, Bael treated her with love and kindness and their love was so great she was even happy to bear his illegitimate child).. I am sure she preferred to overlook the ultimate tragic end of that tale, just as I ignored the fate of Romeo/Juliet and (I am assuming) my daughter preferred to ignore the whole becoming-a-vampire element to Bella/Edward. The important part was the love that defied all barriers and ignored all warnings and was worth giving up everything for. If there is anyone capable of KNOWING that True Love Conquers All, it is a teenage girl, no matter how smart or mature or headstrong or insightful she is.

This is just my own view, but I think Lyanna absolutely fell for Rhaegar and would happily have run off to join the Dothraki with him, if he had suggested it. It was a way out of the distasteful marriage she was otherwise stuck with, a way out from under the constraints of being a "lady" that obviously chafed her, and like most teenagers who fall in love, she probably felt like Rhaegar was the only person in the world who truly understood her - especially if she truly was the KotLT and he not only knew but admired her for it.

Now, this is not to say that at some point, Lyanna did not have something of a reality check. Perhaps she found she missed her family and home desperately. Maybe she found the Tower of Joy insanely boring and prison-like and far from the romantic adventures she had envisioned herself and Rhaegar enjoying. It might have sunk in on her that she was actually going to bear a bastard (assuming a form of marriage was never performed), and what that truly meant in terms of her future. Or maybe somewhere along the journey, Rhaegar got melancholy and broke out the harp once too often, and she suddenly decided he was an unbeloevable bore (since teens are known to snap out of love as fast and illogically as they fall in it). By then, however, it was far, far too late to just call the whole thing off.

I think it is possible that by the time she had been at the ToJ for a while, most of the shine had worn off her adventure and she was probably displaying signs of her discontent. The KG knights left to guard her may well have been left to guard her from leaving, as much as to protect her. Whatever the case, it is clear that she was all too aware of several realities by the time Ned reached her. She knew she was going to pay with her life for her choices (assuming I am right and she chose to go). She knew that the baby would be in mortal peril as Rhaegar's offspring (whether because she knew what befell the rest of his family, or because she feared Robert and/or his cronies' reaction to the child's existence, or just knew that the helpless infant son of a prince, legitimate or not, would be a political target). And her clutching of the blue roses, to me, symbolizes either that she still loved Rhaegar, or they were simply all she had left as a tangible reminder of all the dreams she'd had for herself and her life which would never be.

In any case, this is just my (extremely) long-winded way of saying that the view of Lyanna as a pragmatic, smart, strong willed young woman, and the view of her as a lovestruck young girl who was easily manipulated/convinced by her love to go along with a seemingly insane course of action, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. She could easily have been both, and neither makes her stupid. They make her the kind of complex, sometimes contradictory type of character that we are accustomed to getting from GRRM on his best days.

I can honestly say that I am the reason I did not have children.

(Sorry, had to run).

On a more serious note, those are good points, and I just want to see Lyanna as a character portrayed as more comlex, rather than one-dementional.

I suppose I remember myself a bit as a teenager/young adult, and I was really the opposite, so I'm probably projecting a bit.

I mean, I liked guys, but was never lovesick, didn't understand it, and wanted no part of it.

I cherished my freedom to the point that when I saw boys, all I saw were future husbands, and it scared me.

Even after college, for me it was work and fun, (and I know it sounds a bit shallow), but I was downright scared of settlling down, and all my girlfriends trying to marry me off just irritated me.

But, I did eventually marry, but not until later, and it's great.

I just wanted it to be right, and once.

(And no judgement here for what other people choose for themselves).

It just seems as though there are two types of women in this story, victims and opportunists, so I hope that Lyannas character is a bit out of the box.

Even real history had it's Joan of Arc, (though I doubt Lyanna was that devout), I do hope she was a just a little heroic.

I do enjoy your posts as well. :)

[Dragonfish]

Noooo, I think that analogy applies to each character differently.

Was Brandon impulsive to go only with his friends to KL, rather than wait upon the counsel of his Father?

Yes, but was he also perhaps scared for Lyanna, and goverened by his emotions, just as Lyanna was goverened by hers in fighting for Reed?

Yes.

Certainly going to KL and challenging the ruling family was not done, even if it was his right to do so.

The difference between these examples is that Brandon's death directly resulted from his decision to antagonize the king, while Lyanna's death is only tangentially related to her decision to defend Reed and joust against the knights. The comparison would be more apt if, say, Lyanna had been killed by one of the knight's she defeated.

[LadyoftheNorth72]

Just read this post that popped up before mine - wow! That's one of the most insightful and real things I've seen on here - bravo!

Wow, thank you! :: blush ::

[red fork]

Wow, thank you! :: blush ::

You're welcome :)

Here's a worrying thought though - if Arya is much like Lyanna, what happens when her hormones start kicking in?

[LadyoftheNorth72]

You are right that this is a concerning thought. I honestly don't have an answer, because my experience with teenage girls does not include any trained assassins. I think it would be safe to say she will not have any trouble avoiding the ubiquitous backseat mauling.

If I HAD to guess, I would say that Arya will be an extremely late bloomer romantically, if at all. I did know teenage girls who were athletes who had zero time for or interest in the whole dating/romance thing; their energy and attention was solely for their sport (I was largely this way about competitive dance until an injury forced me to give it up). That is the closest modern parallel to Arya that I think might reasonably apply and fit with her character. It is also why I encouraged my daughter to pursue her amazing talent in volleyball for as long as I possibly could :).

To me, seeing Arya get snared by some boy into a romantic scenario as a young teen would be hard to swallow, given the kind of life she has led. She has no one, trusts no one, generally doesn't even seem to particularly like anyone even in the role of mentor or friend. It seems as if to her, people solely exist if they can further her goals and education, and not many others even make it onto her radar. I think it is a sad and scary state of affairs, and I desperately hope to see it change (the same way I often wish to see young female gymnasts eat a cheeseburger and go to a normal high school, instead of fitting homeschooling and celery sticks in around training sessions - it is just not a natural way to spend such formative years). But aside from her determination to keep Needle, I have not seen much to encourage me that anything will change Arya's path in the foreseeable future.

[Dark Rider]

Intelligence and wisdom are two seperate things. A young man can be very intelligent, but you can't gain wisdom in life without experience it's just that simple. The school of hard knocks is the hardest and best education on the planet in life really. Somethings just have to be learned the hardway, you can't just get them out of a book or even learn them from someone else second hand, because they have to be experienced. Lyanna wasn't stupid she was just 16 and never got the chance to learn what she should of before being taken advantage of by a 24 year old. She made a mistake and she ended up paying for it with her life, with her brother's life, with her father's life so I think she took a very serious punishment.

There was a young man at the university my wife works at, college student at a university with high standards for admission, but one day he decided he would slide down the rail of staircase in the dorms "for fun" or to maybe impress/show off to his friends. It was a stupid thing to do and as he fell I'm sure he realized that very quickly, and now he's paralysed for life. That's a damn hard lesson to learn over one foolish thing.

[red fork]

You are right that this is a concerning thought. I honestly don't have an answer, because my experience with teenage girls does not include any trained assassins.

Again with the funny/clever :)

My thought about Arya was a red herring really - she's too much Nymeria to be anything other that a she-wolf - I can see the girl retaking Winterfell singlehanded then taking a Thenn to husband just to piss off the northern lords!

[Ygrain]

Was Brandon impulsive to go only with his friends to KL, rather than wait upon the counsel of his Father?

Yes, but was he also perhaps scared for Lyanna, and goverened by his emotions, just as Lyanna was goverened by hers in fighting for Reed?

We have no first-hand account, no details, but if he acted more out of fear for his sister than out of hurt pride, shouldn't he scream "yield my sister at once", rather than "come out and die"?

Really, I'm basically jumping on my seat waiting for some more information dropped our way.

[Alia of the knife]

We have no first-hand account, no details, but if he acted more out of fear for his sister than out of hurt pride, shouldn't he scream "yield my sister at once", rather than "come out and die"?

Really, I'm basically jumping on my seat waiting for some more information dropped our way.

You know, I just read that as an emotional reaction.

I think Brandon held Rhaegar responsible for Lyannas disappearance.

He may have been biased towards his sister, not wanting to see signs of any willingness on her part, and immediately blamed Rhaegar.

But, at the end of the day, I think Rhaegar most likely was accountable for Lyanna, so Brandon was not necessarily wrong.

I'm jumping on my seat too.

I'm really surprised I'm into this story, because I generally hate to wait and do NOT like puzzles.

They make me crazy. :bang:

[Ygrain]

You know, I just read that as an emotional reaction.

Yeah, and that's what I like best about it - the ambiguity. It needn't mean a thing, but should it turn out later that Brandon knew of Lyanna's complicity, it will be a wonderful reference.

I'm jumping on my seat too.

I'm really surprised I'm into this story, because I generally hate to wait and do NOT like puzzles.

They make me crazy. :bang:

You tell me. If there ever was a person wanting spoilers, that's me.

[Lykos]

I hate the title of this thread, because I love Lyanna (as much as one can love a character already dead at the start of the story, and not to much information to go on) and I don´t believe she was stupid.

Of course she could have been capeable of acting foolishly and I can completely follow LadyoftheNorth72´s train of thought. (At age 19-20 I was preparing 15 yo kids for exchange years and have seen the most sensible and intelligent girls making fools of themselfs.)

But we have to consider that in this world there is no place for adolescence plus Lyanna was raised in the North a rough world. And her upbringing will have been quite different from Ned´s daughters. There will probably have been no Septa teaching Lyanna. Ned build the Sept for Catelyn. I guess that old Nan had a more important part in Lyanna´s upbringing. There might have been a noble woman of the North at Winterfell, for example Maege Mormont, she named her youngest daughter after Lyanna. We know almost nothing about Lyanna´s mother except, that her mother was a Flint. So I think she was rooted in the beliefs and myths of the North.

This could of course make a reenactment of the story of the Winterrose plausible. But why would Lyanna share Rhaegar´s obsession with the Ptwp prophesy. Rhaegar changed his interpretation of this prophesy already, I think Lyanna had very firm own beliefs based in the religion of the old gods, she will have set his head straight.

Unlike Robb with Jeyne Westerling Lyanna didn´t give in to romance straight away. Jon was conceived more than a year after the Harrenhal Tournament and I think it is save to assume that she stayed in a place known and approved by her family till shortly before Brandon discovered she was gone. A ravensflight to whereever the Stark weddingparty last made camp I´d say.

Lyanna knew how to learn to fight without her father approving, she was observant and insightfull for she assessed Robert correctly. She probably had objections to her father´s "southron ambitions", that went beyond her own marriage.

So what went wrong? I think either Rhaegar or Lyanna must have trusted someone who was manipulated or in league with Varys or Aerys II.

[Alia of the knife]

I hate the title of this thread, because I love Lyanna (as much as one can love a character already dead at the start of the story, and not to much information to go on) and I don´t believe she was stupid.

Of course she could have been capeable of acting foolishly and I can completely follow LadyoftheNorth72´s train of thought. (At age 19-20 I was preparing 15 yo kids for exchange years and have seen the most sensible and intelligent girls making fools of themselfs.)

But we have to consider that in this world there is no place for adolescence plus Lyanna was raised in the North a rough world. And her upbringing will have been quite different from Ned´s daughters. There will probably have been no Septa teaching Lyanna. Ned build the Sept for Catelyn. I guess that old Nan had a more important part in Lyanna´s upbringing. There might have been a noble woman of the North at Winterfell, for example Maege Mormont, she named her youngest daughter after Lyanna. We know almost nothing about Lyanna´s mother except, that her mother was a Flint. So I think she was rooted in the beliefs and myths of the North.

This could of course make a reenactment of the story of the Winterrose plausible. But why would Lyanna share Rhaegar´s obsession with the Ptwp prophesy. Rhaegar changed his interpretation of this prophesy already, I think Lyanna had very firm own beliefs based in the religion of the old gods, she will have set his head straight.

Unlike Robb with Jeyne Westerling Lyanna didn´t give in to romance straight away. Jon was conceived more than a year after the Harrenhal Tournament and I think it is save to assume that she stayed in a place known and approved by her family till shortly before Brandon discovered she was gone. A ravensflight to whereever the Stark weddingparty last made camp I´d say.

Lyanna knew how to learn to fight without her father approving, she was observant and insightfull for she assessed Robert correctly. She probably had objections to her father´s "southron ambitions", that went beyond her own marriage.

So what went wrong? I think either Rhaegar or Lyanna must have trusted someone who was manipulated or in league with Varys or Aerys II.

I agree with this as well, and you brought up some really good points.

I think Lyannas insight into Roberts nature, (and she's telling Ned this), says to me that is one of the factors that make her unlikely as other girls to just fall for Rhaegar without deep, extinuating circumstances.

I read her,(a.k.a, Arya) as someone who might rather have been a Hedge Knight than anybodys wife- Robert, or Rhaegars.

Rickard did have a Maester though, so in terms of education, she may have been very much educated like a man absent a Septa, with Old Nan keeping her in touch with her Northern roots and beliefs, so I agree that I can't see her getting caught up in the foreign prophesy of an unfamiliar Prince who also have their own prophesies specific to just the Targaryens.

Do we know where it says in the book that Rhaegars prophesy had anything to do with the rise of the Others and that he wanted save the world?

Or was it more specific to the decline of House Targaryen, and Rhaegars desire to actually strengthen it?

If the latter is the case, he may have decided that fierce, beautiful, jousting Lyanna would fit the bill to bear him warrior sons to help fight whatever it was the Targaryens feared, and help strengthen their line, thus adjusting "prophesy" again in a manner that now is in line with what he personally wants.

Even Kevan Lannister remembers that if only Rhaegar married Cersei, she could have given him all the sons he wanted.

The warging abilities of the Starks would aid as a shortcut in dealing with any Dragons that might hatch, (wihich they did), absent their former sorcerous abilities, but it is unknown whether Rhaegar knew about that rumor as it seems the Starks themselves don't realize fully what they are.

KL is a cess pool, so anybody could have betrayed Rhaegar.

I do tend to think that Varys is a Blackfyre, so that conspiracy could go back to a time when the Blackfyres felt they should rightfully sit on the throne.

It's the only thing that makes sense to me about Varys stated desire to do whats "right" for the realm.

If thats the case, then why would he actively plot against Rhaegar and Rhaella who are said to be good, in a whispering campaign to Aerys to cause further strife and tension, feeding Aerys paranoia?