R+L=J v.21

[Milk Steak]

Robert would never question where Jon came from or how Lyanna died because he wouldn't want to do so. The story Ned gives works to reinforce Robert's self image. His pious friend has the same flaw Robert does if on a lesser scale, Lyanna was murdered by the beast Rhagar preventing Robert marrying his true love, and Lyanna could never have a child or have affection for a Targ. Why would Robert dig for another story if the one proffered is the one he wants to hear anyway?

[Ygrain]

Is it ever mentioned how Jon got to Winterfell? My line of thought is that he could have sent Jon by ship, possibly accompanied by Howland, who was already complicit, anyway, from Starfall (returning Dawn was just a pretext for the detour), while he himself went to KL to make up with Robert and inform him of Lyanna's death. Also, whatever smallfolk may have been at ToJ, they were most probably servants provided by Dayne, so Ned would return them home, from which they would hardly ever travel anywhere. Thus, lord Stark is never seen with a baby at around the critical time, and the time gap and the distance will obscure how old Jon is and where he came from. He may have even told Robert something like "it turned out I impregnated that girl, you know, Wylla, she's about to give birth soon and I'm going to have the child sent to Winterfell", since with the difference of a couple of weeks, no-one would ever be able to check exact dates once the babe arrives at Winterfell. The rest of the world only knows that the honourable lord Stark fathered a bastard (evil lulz), and since no-one really saw the child, they either think he conceived him during the war, as it happens, or remember the gossip about him and Ashara from before the war, and no-one really bothers to check the timelines since it is so unimportant.

[Lykos]

I always pictured Ned taking Wylla and Jon to Starfall, where he returned Dawn. Then they took a ship to King´s Landing, where Ned had to meet with Robert.

Robert noticed Wylla with child and Ned being secretive about the affair, so he assumed the child is Ned´s and Wylla the mother. Wylla and Jon were sent along to Winterfell, I think also by ship, thus the rumour of the fisherwife named Wylla started. People in White Harbour believed Wylla was the fisherwife of the Sisters (and maybe she was) who helped Ned at the start of the rebellion. I think it would make sense to send Howland Reed along as protection.

[Ygrain]

I always pictured Ned taking Wylla and Jon to Starfall, where he returned Dawn. Then they took a ship to King´s Landing, where Ned had to meet with Robert.

Robert noticed Wylla with child and Ned being secretive about the affair, so he assumed the child is Ned´s and Wylla the mother. Wylla and Jon were sent along to Winterfell, I think also by ship, thus the rumour of the fisherwife named Wylla started. People in White Harbour believed Wylla was the fisherwife of the Sisters (and maybe she was) who helped Ned at the start of the rebellion. I think it would make sense to send Howland Reed along as protection.

That's another option, though I don't think it would be wise to be seen at KL with the child just after coming back from the south - Varys etc might really start suspecting something. Also, I assume that Robert actually neevr saw Wylla - he says she MUST HAVE been special, meaning, he is making an assumption. I think it might have been safset not to tell Robert a thing about the child at that time, and simply let the rumour reach KL later that lord Stark fathered a bastard during the war and has him at Winterfell.

One thing that crossed my mind when reading this quote:

"Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black."

As I read it, Lyanna virtually died moments after she extracted that promise from Ned. Could it be that she knew he was coming and was holding to her life for that? It might mean then that Lyanna herself sent for Ned, possibly to Storm's End. The question is if KG complied with her wish and the fight ensued only after her death, possibly over what to do with Jon, or that she somehow managed, with someone's help, to bypass the KG and they were truly preventing Ned from entering.

[Lykos]

@Ygrain

Special doesn´t have to mean special in looks, but it´s Robert and you´re right about Varys, though he might not have been pardoned yet and held in his quarters ( if that´s possible with Varys). Did Ned know about Varys? I guess he heard of him at the latest at the sack of KL. I especially like the second part of your post. I always had the feeling there was a truce and the fight came after Lyanna´s death.

ETA: I postet a speculative scenario at the " how did Ned find Lyanna " thread.

[Dolorous Eddie]

Tywin, as shrewd as he is, isn't omniscient. For example, he never considered his mistreatment of Tyrion would come back to bite him. If he thought to consider an alternative for Jon's origins he probably dismissed it; officially, the boy had no rights, he was way up north and would probably end up on the Wall anyway. Tywin didn't bother Aemon and probably didn't feel the need to waste his energy on Jon. Most others probably thought the same.

Precisely. After all, in the world of ASOIAF, bastards are almost at the bottom of the food chain. In the actual Middle Ages, this might not be the case, as royal bastards often held some sort of position and in fact, at least in my country, a bastard started a dynasty. In Westeros, however, GRRM makes it very clear that no one cares. Robert's bastards were very much an open secret. Cersei only did something about them after his death, and I think she did it out of spite, not because they were any threat to the succession line.

Now, it's very likely that some of the lords might have considered it a possibility. Tywin was an evil mastermind, he probably gave it some thought. But realistically, what did it matter? Ned was telling everybody he was his son, he was in Winterfell, where he represented no threat to anyone. Targ loyalists were much more likely to rally around Viserys, anyway. They had just won a war and presumably,Tywin had no interest in starting a new one. If he gave any thought to the possibility that Jon was Rhaegar's son, it would be in his best interest to keep it very quiet, so as not to stir the remaining supporters of the Targaryens. Furthermore, at the time Tywin's position was not in the least secure: he had come late to the cause and had been Hand to the previous king for many years. It would be unwise to alienate the King's best friend, specially seeing as he was also Warden of the North...

The same goes for the other lords. As for Robert: it is quite clear to me that he believed what he wanted to believe, and he was not the brightest person either. So when the honourable Ned Stark told him he'd fathered a bastard, he probably laughed and made some jape and never gave it another thought.

All in all, I think most of the lords took Ned's word for it, presumably indulged in a little schadenfreude and moved on with their lives. If anyone questioned Jon's birth, they probably (and rightly) felt it best to keep their suspicion to themselves. And as for the servants at the ToJ and other small folk, I leave you with some wise words from the man himself:

"The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. They never are"

[Buried Treasure]

:agree:

Small caveat, Cersei did not order the deaths of Roberts bastards just for spite - there was also the small matter of them actually resembling Robert, unlike her own children. If she had actually borne trueborn children she would not have needed to kill Robert's bastards.

[Inigo Montoya the Second]

This is off topic, and very very very very mucho grande far fetched, but i just had a moment of inspiration reading another thread.

who has seen jon that would place him with rhaegar? now i KNOW he doesn't look like a targaryen, but why can't he look like rhaegar?

i just skimmed through a few chapters in got, and jon isn't allowed to duel/train/whatever with the others when they come to winterfell or dine with them. he has an exchange with jaime on the show, but i'm almost positive it isn't in the books.

does anyone remember if tyrion remembers rhaegar? if he did, i'm sure it would have came to him at one point. benjen was young at the tourney of harrenhall.

i know this is all probably a result of insomnia, but i kind of want dany to meet him and remember her vision in the house of the undying.

[Arya Targaryen]

I doubt Tyrion knew Rhaegar well enough to recognize any possible resembence between him and Jon. Maester Aemon could have noticed some family traits in Jon, but he was blind. I think that was the whole point in making him blind...

[Ursa]

I do believe that Tyrion would have been too young to have known Rhaegar - wasn't he 10 or 11 when the rebellion happened and mostly kept back at Casterly Rock?

IIRC, there are very few people who would have gotten a good enough look at both Rhaegar and Jon to notice any likeness between the two. I don't think Jaime was one of them.

It would be very, very interesting to see what Selmy thinks of Jon when (and you know it's only a matter of time) the two of them meet.

[Dragonfish]

For what it's worth, in AFFC Cersei recalls seeing Jon at Winterfell, and she merely notes that he looks just like Ned. She doesn't notice any resemblance to Rhaegar.

[Screaming Knight]

Precisely. After all, in the world of ASOIAF, bastards are almost at the bottom of the food chain. In the actual Middle Ages, this might not be the case, as royal bastards often held some sort of position and in fact, at least in my country, a bastard started a dynasty. In Westeros, however, GRRM makes it very clear that no one cares. Robert's bastards were very much an open secret. Cersei only did something about them after his death, and I think she did it out of spite, not because they were any threat to the succession line.

Now, it's very likely that some of the lords might have considered it a possibility. Tywin was an evil mastermind, he probably gave it some thought. But realistically, what did it matter? Ned was telling everybody he was his son, he was in Winterfell, where he represented no threat to anyone. Targ loyalists were much more likely to rally around Viserys, anyway. They had just won a war and presumably,Tywin had no interest in starting a new one. If he gave any thought to the possibility that Jon was Rhaegar's son, it would be in his best interest to keep it very quiet, so as not to stir the remaining supporters of the Targaryens. Furthermore, at the time Tywin's position was not in the least secure: he had come late to the cause and had been Hand to the previous king for many years. It would be unwise to alienate the King's best friend, specially seeing as he was also Warden of the North...

The same goes for the other lords. As for Robert: it is quite clear to me that he believed what he wanted to believe, and he was not the brightest person either. So when the honourable Ned Stark told him he'd fathered a bastard, he probably laughed and made some jape and never gave it another thought.

All in all, I think most of the lords took Ned's word for it, presumably indulged in a little schadenfreude and moved on with their lives. If anyone questioned Jon's birth, they probably (and rightly) felt it best to keep their suspicion to themselves. And as for the servants at the ToJ and other small folk, I leave you with some wise words from the man himself:

"The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. They never are"

These are all good well thought scenarios. Perhaps one of them couldve been incorporated in the book. It's pointless to dwell on this, I realize that, but once I began seeing how cold hearted and ruthless the bannisters are regarding babies who might one day pose a threat to their power, i couldn't help think who they truly think jons parents were when it was initially revealed Ned stark has a bastard. I guess cersei was told either wylla, and didn't quite believe it, or she was told nothing and suspected it may have been ashara dayne. I cant imagine she wouldn't tell her father if she started putting the pieces together. She must have given it some thought at some point to suspect that ashara was the mother. And she knows that Ned killed Arthur dayne. I guess she never asked herself what the KG may have been doing there, or thought that the KG may have been there to protect someone that they considered their king.

ETA: it's not the opinion of the common people that bothers me.

[Ser Justin Scummy]

I do believe that Tyrion would have been too young to have known Rhaegar - wasn't he 10 or 11 when the rebellion happened and mostly kept back at Casterly Rock?

IIRC, there are very few people who would have gotten a good enough look at both Rhaegar and Jon to notice any likeness between the two. I don't think Jaime was one of them.

It would be very, very interesting to see what Selmy thinks of Jon when (and you know it's only a matter of time) the two of them meet.

Jamie was a member of the KG and Rhaegar was the crown Prince so I am pretty sure that Jamie had a good look at Rhaegar it is only logical

[Ser Justin Scummy]

The truth of the matter is that multiple time we read that Jon looks like a Stark and that is all we know. It doesn't say he loooks like a targ but to me that is more proof hen not. If you constenly say somthing over and over then it is probly important and you want people to take notice. With the big mystrey behind Jon's past and the fact that in the first book we were contently told that Jon has the look of a Stark.

My belief is that Jon is the son of Lyanna and Rhaegar and that quite possibly he was legetimized by Rhaegar for the purpose of the Kg being at the ToJ.

I want this to be true because if that is the case then Jon is not really dead but I have come to see that GRRM's writing is so realistic that He will kill off the hero easy.

Examples

Ned ad is Head cut off in GoT

Robb lost his at the red Wedding

Drogo died shortly after deciding to come to westreos and claim the iron throne

Uncle Kelvan at the end of DwD and I add him because He was a hero..He was trying to clean up the Dumb Queen's mess

So for Jon to die would suck most badly it is a possible truth to come

[Screaming Knight]

The truth of the matter is that multiple time we read that Jon looks like a Stark and that is all we know. It doesn't say he loooks like a targ but to me that is more proof hen not. If you constenly say somthing over and over then it is probly important and you want people to take notice. With the big mystrey behind Jon's past and the fact that in the first book we were contently told that Jon has the look of a Stark.

My belief is that Jon is the son of Lyanna and Rhaegar and that quite possibly he was legetimized by Rhaegar for the purpose of the Kg being at the ToJ.

I want this to be true because if that is the case then Jon is not really dead but I have come to see that GRRM's writing is so realistic that He will kill off the hero easy.

Examples

Ned ad is Head cut off in GoT

Robb lost his at the red Wedding

Drogo died shortly after deciding to come to westreos and claim the iron throne

Uncle Kelvan at the end of DwD and I add him because He was a hero..He was trying to clean up the Dumb Queen's mess

So for Jon to die would suck most badly it is a possible truth to come

I was on a site a while ago that had a lost of POVs for TWOW and Jon was on the list. The site seemed pretty official but on the wiki for TWOW there was only a handful of POVs confirmed and Jon was not among them. That kind of depressed me but I should've realized that his name would not have been released as a POV so soon given the ambiguity of his current status. Does anyone know of the definite characters who will have chapters. And I also read that he will not be introducing any new character chapters besides a prologue and an epilogue.

[Ser Justin Scummy]

I also red somwhere that GRRM said he is not ading any new PoV's except for maybe the prologue and epilogue

I don't really think or believe that Jon is dead.....it just seems to me that GRRM put too much into him throughout this seris to just kill him off so anticlimatic with no answer to who Jon really is but then again this story is more then just ficition it is fantasey that rides so close to truth that in real life good people and heros die all the time they don't always win ans I think GRRM write that way some so I mean we won;t really know until it is realeased

[Milcov]

Jamie was a member of the KG and Rhaegar was the crown Prince so I am pretty sure that Jamie had a good look at Rhaegar it is only logical

But Jaime didn't get a good look at Jon.

People who get a good look at Jon:

Eddard

Catelyn

Rest of theStark household

Jeor

Aemon (blind)

Rest of the NW

Potentially some other northern nobles

People who get a good look at Rhaegar:

Barristan

Eddard

Robert

Jaime

Martells

Cersei (presumably due to Tywin trying to arrange a marriage)

Tywin

Jorah

Varys

Aemon (maybe, but he'd recognise Targaryen features)

Only Eddard really crosses over into both and he dies at the end of AGoT before anything can be revealed. Our best chance lies with Daenerys travelling across the sea and her court encountering Jon if he hasn't died.

And it's also very possible that Rhaegar just doesn't look much like Jon at all, as Arya doesn't look like Catelyn while the rest of the Stark children do.

[Screaming Knight]

But Jaime didn't get a good look at Jon.

People who get a good look at Jon:

Eddard

Catelyn

Rest of theStark household

Jeor

Aemon (blind)

Rest of the NW

Potentially some other northern nobles

People who get a good look at Rhaegar:

Barristan

Eddard

Robert

Jaime

Martells

Cersei (presumably due to Tywin trying to arrange a marriage)

Tywin

Jorah

Varys

Aemon (maybe, but he'd recognise Targaryen features)

Only Eddard really crosses over into both and he dies at the end of AGoT before anything can be revealed. Our best chance lies with Daenerys travelling across the sea and her court encountering Jon if he hasn't died.

And it's also very possible that Rhaegar just doesn't look much like Jon at all, as Arya doesn't look like Catelyn while the rest of the Stark children do.

Just hearing about Ned coming home with a bastard after the war should have been enough to raise suspicion. I don't think they would have to see a resemblance in order to connect the dots.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Just hearing about Ned coming home with a bastard after the war should have been enough to raise suspicion. I don't think they would have to see a resemblance in order to connect the dots.

I've already answered this — Ned's reputation was strong enough that if he said something, people believed it. He was one of the people in power and his friends were the king and the Hand of the King. Whatever suspicions people may have had, if they had any, would have been shot down pretty quickly before they disappeared altogether. That no one in the modern time shows suspicion should be evident that whatever explanation Ned gave, people found it satisfactory. If that's not an a good enough answer for you, then I doubt anything will be.

As other people have mentioned, it wouldn't be unusual at all for a lord on the road for a year in a war zone to come home with a bastard. It wouldn't have been out of the ordinary and probably not as suspicious as you suggest.

[Dolorous Eddie]

Just hearing about Ned coming home with a bastard after the war should have been enough to raise suspicion. I don't think they would have to see a resemblance in order to connect the dots.

This is precisely what we've been trying to explain. That many might have connected the dots and just thought it better to keep it quiet or didn't care at all.

Allow me to digress: I often wonder how history would have been different if whenever a king didn't produce a male heir they'd just take one of their bastards or allow some one to impregnate their queen, lock her up for 9 months and then say "hey, here's my son, you owe him allegiance, etc.". It would have avoided so many wars...

Then again, maybe they did.