I looked for you… - who sent the Kingsguard to the Tower of Joy

[Humphrey Plantagenet]

Much can be inferred by the presence of the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and two of his Brothers at the Tower of Joy. The Kingsguard are sworn to protect the King and his family and so if Rhaegar sent three of them to the TofJ then someone pretty significant must surely have been there.

But who sent the Kingsguard to the TofJ? They’re also sworn to obey the King’s orders and to keep his secrets.

R + L = J borders on hegemony in this parish. But in the interest of seeing all sides, and for the fun of it, I’d like to offer an alternative explanation of how that intriguing confrontation at the TofJ came to be.

Rhaegar left Lyanna at the TofJ to take command of the Royal Army. In the circumstances of a wide ranging civil war the Crown Prince would be traveling with part of the Kingsguard wherever he went. Whatever the relationship between Rhaegar & Lyanna, Rhaegar clearly wasn’t going to give her up. So he asks his friend Arthur Dayne to stay at the TofJ while he sorts out Bob Baratheon.

The exchange between Jamie Lannister and Rhaegar, as reported by Jamie, suggests that Rhaegar intended to take the government of the realm in hand. And was in a position to do so. But when he leaves to meet his doom his father remains in full control of Kings Landing and of the Targaryen loyalists. And was propbably suspicious of his son.

So, with Rhaegar gone Aerys summons his Lord Commander and says something along the lines of “I may be mad as a bag of cats, but I know Rhaegar’s up to something. Where’s Dayne? And Where’s the Stark girl?”. Ser Gerold tells him that he either knows or suspects that Ser Arthur is in the South guarding Lyanna. Aery’s likes a hostage so he keeps Ser Jamie at KL to discourage his father from getting involved and orders Ser Gerold to head South and fetch Lyanna.

The orders he gives him are something along the lines of: order Dayne back to KL with my hostage. Let’s see how bolshie Ned Stark is with his sister’s life on the line. And Robert for that matter. Take Whent and make sure he accompanies Dayne back. I don’t want him getting any ideas about running off to find my son. When that’s sorted head to Storm’s End and take Command. Mace Tyrell is beyond useless and I need those troops sometime this decade. Finally, if there’s any risk of the Stark girl escaping, being rescued or anything else going wrong then kill her.

Aery’s has got to love Lyanna Stark as a hostage. She provides leverage over Ned, Robert and his own son. Anyway, everything goes tits up for the Targaryens and somewhere on the road South the news reaches Ser Gerold & Ser Oswell. They join Ser Arthur at the TofJ and weigh up there options.

Most of the Targs are dead. There’s no army to rally. They can’t reach the survivors on Dragonstone. There’s no chance they’ll run or hide. Ned Stark will find his sister pretty quickly, so best to stay put and make their stand there. When they see the rescue party approach they carry out the Kings last order and kill Lyanna, then head out to meet them.

“We swore a vow”.

Lyanna was just a hostage. The Kingsguard end up there by happenstance and Ned promised Lyanna he’d take her body home. Or protect Robert. Or something else more mundane than “protect my half Targaryen son”.

[Know Face Man]

I like it. But I'm not sure

[Arkash]

One flaw: Lyanna was still alive when Ned arrived... but interesting idea... yet I dont believe it, as I do not believe the theory about R and L being married... I guess it's something completely different that took place that day at that tower !

[Ibbison from Ibben]

So, with Rhaegar gone Aerys summons his Lord Commander and says something along the lines of “I may be mad as a bag of cats, but I know Rhaegar’s up to something. Where’s Dayne? And Where’s the Stark girl?”. Ser Gerold tells him that he either knows or suspects that Ser Arthur is in the South guarding Lyanna. Aery’s likes a hostage so he keeps Ser Jamie at KL to discourage his father from getting involved and orders Ser Gerold to head South and fetch Lyanna.

The orders he gives him are something along the lines of: order Dayne back to KL with my hostage. Let’s see how bolshie Ned Stark is with his sister’s life on the line. And Robert for that matter. Take Whent and make sure he accompanies Dayne back. I don’t want him getting any ideas about running off to find my son. When that’s sorted head to Storm’s End and take Command. Mace Tyrell is beyond useless and I need those troops sometime this decade. Finally, if there’s any risk of the Stark girl escaping, being rescued or anything else going wrong then kill her.

Aery’s has got to love Lyanna Stark as a hostage. She provides leverage over Ned, Robert and his own son. Anyway, everything goes tits up for the Targaryens and somewhere on the road South the news reaches Ser Gerold & Ser Oswell. They join Ser Arthur at the TofJ and weigh up there options.

Up to this point it's a good hypothesis. It is a better explanation of why there were 3 KG at the ToJ than the normal story. It also treats Aerys' actions more realistically.

Most of the Targs are dead. There’s no army to rally. They can’t reach the survivors on Dragonstone. There’s no chance they’ll run or hide. Ned Stark will find his sister pretty quickly, so best to stay put and make their stand there. When they see the rescue party approach they carry out the Kings last order and kill Lyanna, then head out to meet them.

“We swore a vow”.

Lyanna was just a hostage. The Kingsguard end up there by happenstance and Ned promised Lyanna he’d take her body home. Or protect Robert. Or something else more mundane than “protect my half Targaryen son”.

This doesn't work very well. It doesn't explain where Ned got Jon from. (Ned committing adultery just isn't very believable.) It doesn't explain why Ned is still obsessed about his oath to Lyanna.

But I like your explanation of how Hightower and Whent got to the ToJ.

[redriver]

Yes Lyanna was alive.

From the Jon Connington POV late in ADWD he remembers Elia of Dorne -"She would bear no more children,the maesters had told Prince Rhaegar afterward".(After the birth of Aegon 6)

I mention this because if Rhaegar was hellbent on creating the three heads of the dragon,then he desperately needed another child.So maybe he was capable of abducting and raping Lyanna.Not that his wooing of her can be ruled out.

Either way,Aerys,if he had known would have treated her as a hostage.

I keep thinking of the four "rat faced men" in Dany's House of Dust vision.Rhaegar,plus three KG.(After R left)

[JerryYOTDragon]

>>

Ned is still obsessed about his oath to Lyanna

Agreed. From that point at least

, this interesting theory, has a crack

>>

Ned committing adultery just isn't very believable

In his cell in KL he muses about being able to tell Jon something. Surely not that his mother was a fish-wife?

[corbon]

A much simpler version that doesn't have cracks.

Rhaegar is at ToJ with Lyanna and Arthur Dayne and possibly one more KG.

The shit has hit the fan and Rhaegar is needed to come back and take command of the Royalist army.

Someone had to 'go get' Rhaegar.

Hightower goes, at Aerys command (we know he was at KL when Brandon arrived) possibly taking 1 more KG with him.

When they get there, Rhaegar leaves Hightower, Dayne and Whent behind to protect Lyanna and his unborn third head, returns to KL with another KG (probably Martell, maybe Darry - I can't see Hightower letting him travel alone), then takes Martell and Darry off to war leaving Jaime in KL with Aerys, lots of men, his family and an impregnable castle.

Everyone is keeping to their vows and their natural missions at all times.

[The GreatRon]

interesting theory, but I doubt the promise between Ned and Lyanna was just to take her bones home.

[The Swaggering Bravo]

If Lyanna just told Ned to take her bones home, why would that give him bad dreams for as long as Jon had been alive? Also, since she was still alive when Ned got there, the last part of your theory doesn't match up.

[Humphrey Plantagenet]

My alternative Jon theory runs....Ned wasn't the type to have a bastard, but his best friend was. Robert wasn't great at looking after his bastards, but GoT showed that Ned would fill that breach whenever he could. A child of Roberts born to a highborn lady around the time Kings Landing fell could throw a spanner in the works of the new peace/marriage pact. And the Lannisters had very recent form for baby killing for political gain. So Ned hides away Robert's bastard. This would rely on Bob Baratheon not knowing he'd knocked up the lady in question. But that's not much of a stretch. A bastard of Robert's would require as much secrecy as a son of Rhaegar's in the circumstances.

Ned finding a dying sister, lying to his best friend, mourning his Dad & brother and generally witnessing the horrors of war would cause a lifetime of horrific dreams. Which would be amplified by growing guilt over deceiving his wife.

What I will admit is that the idea of any member of the Kingsguard doing such a bad job of dispatching Lyanna that she suffers a painful death which is so long she's still expiring when Ned arrives is pretty unlikely.

I’ll have to think on that.

[Anvilbreaker]

From what we've heard of the mad king at the end he may have sent the kg out when he saw how f'ed he was and told them "kill that stark girl and make it take a while". Probably not what happened, but within the realm of possibility

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Interesting premise but as others have said several parts of it don't add up.

I don't think that all three Kingsguard guys had to arrive at the same time or had to be sent there for the same reason (i.e. Dayne could have gone first with Rhaegar and Hightower and Whent could have arrived later to bring Rhaegar back, or something). So that part I don't have an issue with.

By biggest problem with this is that it doesn't explain at all where Jon came from in a satisfactory way, not even putting up alternative candidates for his mother. EDIT: I just scrolled down and read your idea that Jon is Robert's, which doesn't fly because Jon, more than even most of Ned's other children, looks like a Stark. And I strongly doubt that Ned would be haunted for a decade and a half over promising to bury his sister in the family crypt. Even if that was the promise, he kept it already, so why should it still give him fits after so long? It seems clear that the promise is one that's ongoing.

I also think that if the Kingsguard members had meant to kill Lyanna, they would and could have done so long before Ned arrived. That part of the argument doesn't hold water. I'm also not convinced that Lyanna was there as a hostage or against her will. If anything, Rhaegar, seeing how Aerys kept tight control over Elia and her children, would have kept Lyanna at the Tower to protect her from ending up in a hostage situation.

[The King in the South]

Afraid to say it but there's a hole in your theory. When Jaime reminices on his conversation with Rhaegar, it's only him, Barristan and Darry left guarding the King. Then Barristan and Darry go with Rhaegar.

So Aerys would have to have ordered the LC away well Rhaegar was still there, something I'm not exactly sure would have worked

[Dragonfish]

My alternative Jon theory runs....Ned wasn't the type to have a bastard, but his best friend was. Robert wasn't great at looking after his bastards, but GoT showed that Ned would fill that breach whenever he could. A child of Roberts born to a highborn lady around the time Kings Landing fell could throw a spanner in the works of the new peace/marriage pact. And the Lannisters had very recent form for baby killing for political gain. So Ned hides away Robert's bastard. This would rely on Bob Baratheon not knowing he'd knocked up the lady in question. But that's not much of a stretch. A bastard of Robert's would require as much secrecy as a son of Rhaegar's in the circumstances.

Uh...no it wouldn't. Robert had already made a few bastards by the time he crowned himself, one of which was already a few years old by the time of the Sack. And he would later go on to father Edric Storm on another highborn lady. None of these bastards needed to be raised in secret in order to avoid the wrath of the Lannisters, so why would Ned raise Jon in secret? What makes him so special?

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Afraid to say it but there's a hole in your theory. When Jaime reminices on his conversation with Rhaegar, it's only him, Barristan and Darry left guarding the King. Then Barristan and Darry go with Rhaegar.

Good point, I forgot about this bit. I think it says that Martell was already gone, doing something in the Riverlands — fighting or commanding or something. There's no mention of where Dayne, Whent and Hightower are, so it's entirely possible that by that time, all three are already at the Tower or en route.

[LadyMary]

Much can be inferred by the presence of the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and two of his Brothers at the Tower of Joy. The Kingsguard are sworn to protect the King and his family and so if Rhaegar sent three of them to the TofJ then someone pretty significant must surely have been there.

But who sent the Kingsguard to the TofJ? They’re also sworn to obey the King’s orders and to keep his secrets.

R + L = J borders on hegemony in this parish. But in the interest of seeing all sides, and for the fun of it, I’d like to offer an alternative explanation of how that intriguing confrontation at the TofJ came to be.

Rhaegar left Lyanna at the TofJ to take command of the Royal Army. In the circumstances of a wide ranging civil war the Crown Prince would be traveling with part of the Kingsguard wherever he went. Whatever the relationship between Rhaegar & Lyanna, Rhaegar clearly wasn’t going to give her up. So he asks his friend Arthur Dayne to stay at the TofJ while he sorts out Bob Baratheon.

The exchange between Jamie Lannister and Rhaegar, as reported by Jamie, suggests that Rhaegar intended to take the government of the realm in hand. And was in a position to do so. But when he leaves to meet his doom his father remains in full control of Kings Landing and of the Targaryen loyalists. And was propbably suspicious of his son.

So, with Rhaegar gone Aerys summons his Lord Commander and says something along the lines of “I may be mad as a bag of cats, but I know Rhaegar’s up to something. Where’s Dayne? And Where’s the Stark girl?”. Ser Gerold tells him that he either knows or suspects that Ser Arthur is in the South guarding Lyanna. Aery’s likes a hostage so he keeps Ser Jamie at KL to discourage his father from getting involved and orders Ser Gerold to head South and fetch Lyanna.

The orders he gives him are something along the lines of: order Dayne back to KL with my hostage. Let’s see how bolshie Ned Stark is with his sister’s life on the line. And Robert for that matter. Take Whent and make sure he accompanies Dayne back. I don’t want him getting any ideas about running off to find my son. When that’s sorted head to Storm’s End and take Command. Mace Tyrell is beyond useless and I need those troops sometime this decade. Finally, if there’s any risk of the Stark girl escaping, being rescued or anything else going wrong then kill her.

Aery’s has got to love Lyanna Stark as a hostage. She provides leverage over Ned, Robert and his own son. Anyway, everything goes tits up for the Targaryens and somewhere on the road South the news reaches Ser Gerold & Ser Oswell. They join Ser Arthur at the TofJ and weigh up there options.

Most of the Targs are dead. There’s no army to rally. They can’t reach the survivors on Dragonstone. There’s no chance they’ll run or hide. Ned Stark will find his sister pretty quickly, so best to stay put and make their stand there. When they see the rescue party approach they carry out the Kings last order and kill Lyanna, then head out to meet them.

“We swore a vow”.

Lyanna was just a hostage. The Kingsguard end up there by happenstance and Ned promised Lyanna he’d take her body home. Or protect Robert. Or something else more mundane than “protect my half Targaryen son”.

Yeah, I used to think this too, although I think there's more evidence that the Kings Guard were guarding their King (Jon) when Eddard and the Northmen arrive at the ToJ. I don't see why it can't be both.

Here's the part that doesn't fit: If Aerys is dead, Rhaegar is dead and Aegon is (believed) dead then the next King is Viserys, or the new guy on the throne (Robert) depending on how they choose to view their vows. Protecting a hostage of a dead King doesn't make sense. So why didn't they go to Dragonstone or return to Kings Landing and plead for clemency since they were just doing their sworn duty? Certainly, keeping the hostage who is betrothed to the newly-crowned King Robert and the sister of the man standing before them with his bannermen ready to fight for her would not serve any purpose, unless they were sincere - that they believed they were protecting their newborn King; a trueborm son of Rhaegar.

Perhaps when Aerys found out about Lyanna ordered the the KG to guard the hostage at the ToJ, but those particular KG who went were close friends of (and probably loyal to) Rhaegar, so that's why Rhaegar pursuaded his father to send them to guard the "hostage". In truth, Rhaegar ordered the KG to protect his wife and child until he could return to Kings Landing and depose his father. If that was the case, they would have a duty of honor to their friend and a sworn duty to their new King to protect him.

[LadyoftheNorth72]

Uh...no it wouldn't. Robert had already made a few bastards by the time he crowned himself, one of which was already a few years old by the time of the Sack. And he would later go on to father Edric Storm on another highborn lady. None of these bastards needed to be raised in secret in order to avoid the wrath of the Lannisters, so why would Ned raise Jon in secret? What makes him so special?

There is also the fact that the point is made over and over (ad nauseum, really) that Robert's bastards all look just like him. At minimum, Jon would have the Baratheon black hair. Also, it is hard to imagine why there would be a need to keep the secret from Robert himself. Robert was able to threaten Cersei off of Mya Stone and Edric Storm. With what Robert sees as his requited and everlasting love for Lyanna, any child she had borne him would probably have been raised in greater splendor and protection than Joff himself ...and Cersei (IMO) would never have dared to touch THAT one, for fear of finding out for herself exactly how good Ilyn Payne really is.

Also with Lyanna's overall disdain for Robert and his philandering ways, it is doubtful she would have voluntarily given him her maidenhead out of wedlock, or that he would have taken it by force. And there would have been no reason for Lyanna to swear Ned to lifelong secrecy. The rebellion was won; Robert's byblows would have little to fear; and certainly Lyanna could not have known Robert's queen would be a cruel and murderous woman.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

If Lyanna just told Ned to take her bones home, why would that give him bad dreams for as long as Jon had been alive? Also, since she was still alive when Ned got there, the last part of your theory doesn't match up.

I think this alternative theory is totally plausible, just as plausible as R+L=J. Maybe it gives Ned nightmares because he watched his beloved sister die. That would be enough to give any normal human being nightmares for the rest of their life I think.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

I think this alternative theory is totally plausible, just as plausible as R+L=J. Maybe it gives Ned nightmares because he watched his beloved sister die. That would be enough to give any normal human being nightmares for the rest of their life I think.

It's not so much her death that gives him problems, but the circumstances of it and specifically the promise. "Promise me, Ned." That's what he keeps coming back to. I don't think just promising to bury her in the family crypt would have that much of an emotional impact, especially given that he already would have kept that promise. It's the promise that sticks in Ned's mind and makes him feel guilty and worried.

[Dragonfish]

It's also important to remember that Ned recalls making multiple promises to Lyanna, and that he paid a price to keep them. So it can't just be that he's haunted by his promise to bury Lyanna. There has to be at least one more promise involved, and it has to be a promise that cost him something.