R+L = Jon and Meera Reed?

[JonSnow4President]

 

Well, Mel SAYS she saw Jon's sister.  But sure, she might be wrong, but ... I'm a little leary of people assuming too carelessly that Mel is always wrong about everything she thinks she sees in the flames.  Also ...

 

Alys Karstark is the LEAST convincing explanation for the mystery of the girl in grey.  For a whole host of reasons.  First, she was never confirmed to have worn grey (Jon merely assumes this).  Second, there is no huge endless lake between Karhold and Castle Black.  Third, her horse was dying when she arrived at the Wall, and that's not where Mel saw the dying horse (an already-dying horse probably cannot ride hundreds or thousands of miles from one of Westeros' large lakes).  Fourth, she's a minor character of no importance, so why is GRRM wasting our time with prophesies about her?   Finally, she is not Jon's sister in ANY sense of the word.

 

Yeah, the last objection is the weakest and may not matter.  But the others pose a real difficulty.

First, she was never confirmed to wear grey.  Jon does step over a damp pile of her clothes though and makes no note.  At best for anything crazy, it says absolutely nothing.  The lack of contradiction though suggest it was in line with his expectations.

 

Second, there is this thing called Long Lake, which if the map int he books in the box set is anything to judge by, appears to be roughly 150 leagues long (roughly half the length of the wall).  At surface level, do to curvature up the earth, I think visibility stops after about 7 miles for someone who is 6 feet tall, although I can't remember where I've heard that, so please don't crucify me if it's longer/shorter.  

 

Third.  Her horse never made it to the wall.  "Her horse was dying under her.  All skin and ribs it was, lame and lathered.  They cut it loose and took the girl for questioning"

 

Fourth. She's heir to one of the Starks major bannermen, and was mentioned as early as ASOS.  With 2.5 books remaining from her mention point, she may be more significant than "just a minor character of no importance."  (It's not like we're saying she's Azor Ahai/PTWP/secretly Lyanna).  And so far, she's been a wonderful solution to giving Jon a political challenge outside the Watch to maneuver. 

 

Fifth.  True.  Although she looks enough like her to give Jon's a moment's thought that it could be her "She looked enough like Arya to give him pause, but only for a moment."  Without testing the controls around information and walking-through Melisandre's prediction process, I can't conclude on the whether the information she's pulling from her R'hollor o'vision information system to be reliably used as evidence for anything (oh god, the training week is getting to me). We don't know what system query she was running.  Even when she runs it with clearly defined search terms "Show me Stannis, Lord, she prayed. Show me your king, your instrument," we get something that has to be interpreted. 

"Visions danced before her, gold and scarlet, flickering, forming and melting and dissolving into one another, shapes strange and terrifying and seductive. She saw the eyeless faces again, staring out at her from sockets weeping blood. Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. Shadows in the shape of skulls, skulls that turned to mist, bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing. Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky."

Of course, the whole little thing (I'm assuming this applies to Meera) doesn't fit Meera either, who was not on a horse, and doesn't wear grey ("She wore lambskin breeches soft with long use, and a sleeveless jerkin armored in bronze scales."), and wasn't to anything that would visibly be called endless water "forgot the quote"  The only piece that not impossibly fits would be a hidden sister element.

 

The whole Meera thing is just another argument from the gaps in our information and wishful thinking, coupled with the added bonus that it at least works for the timeline, which is more than most Jon sibling theories work.

[Isobel Harper]

Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? I don't think so. Just to play devil advocate, here's another user's post on the matter that I found interesting: http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/115566-faegon-is-leia/page-4#entry6960142

Speaking of twin theories, R+L=YG+J is a pet favorite of mine: http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/134614-why-i-think-aegon-is-real/page-3#entry7295689

There's also the link in my signature.

If true, YG+J could play out in a different ways. First, Daenerys could discover some sort damning evidence that convinces her that Elia's son Aegon DID die. "Fire and Blood" ensues. She goes to war and possibly even manages to kill this "Aegon." Enter Jon Snow/Howland Reed/Jon Connington/whoever who reveals that he WAS in fact Rhaegar's son, who was used as a pawn in Illyrio and Varys' game just like she was.

Second, GRRM might subvert the "Luke-Leia" trope (is that a thing?) and have DoD 2.0 be between Aegon and Jon.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? I don't think so. Just to play devil advocate, here's another user's post on the matter that I found interesting: http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/115566-faegon-is-leia/page-4#entry6960142

Speaking of twin theories, R+L=YG+J is a pet favorite of mine: http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/134614-why-i-think-aegon-is-real/page-3#entry7295689

There's also the link in my signature.

If true, YG+J could play out in a different ways. First, Daenerys could discover some sort damning evidence that convinces her that Elia's son Aegon DID die. "Fire and Blood" ensues. She goes to war and possibly even manages to kill this "Aegon." Enter Jon Snow/Howland Reed/Jon Connington/whoever who reveals that he WAS in fact Rhaegar's son, who was used as a pawn in Illyrio and Varys' game just like she was.

Second, GRRM might subvert the "Luke-Leia" trope (is that a thing?) and have DoD 2.0 be between Aegon and Jon.

Actually it's not possible unless Jon's father is Howland Reed.  Meera's looks are typical of the Crannogmen.  There is nothing remotely Stark or Targaryen about her.

 

If Jon has a twin there are only four options:

1) it's Aegon, and GRRM has some explaining to do;

2) it's Dany, and GRRM has some explaining to do;

3) it's Allyria Dayne, and GRRM has some explaining to do;

4) the poor kid died, it doesn't matter, and GRRM doesn't have to explain a thing.

[JonSnow4President]

Actually it's not possible unless Jon's father is Howland Reed.  Meera's looks are typical of the Crannogmen.  There is nothing remotely Stark or Targaryen about her.

 

If Jon has a twin there are only four options:

1) it's Aegon, and GRRM has some explaining to do;

2) it's Dany, and GRRM has some explaining to do;

3) it's Allyria Dayne, and GRRM has some explaining to do;

4) the poor kid died, it doesn't matter, and GRRM doesn't have to explain a thing.

Not to help this garbage out at all, but isn't this just an assumption? (aka, produce a quote and show me I'm wrong)

[ChillyPolly]

 

First, she was never confirmed to wear grey.  Jon does step over a damp pile of her clothes though and makes no note.  At best for anything crazy, it says absolutely nothing.  The lack of contradiction though suggest it was in line with his expectations.

 

Second, there is this thing called Long Lake, which if the map int he books in the box set is anything to judge by, appears to be roughly 150 leagues long (roughly half the length of the wall).  At surface level, do to curvature up the earth, I think visibility stops after about 7 miles for someone who is 6 feet tall, although I can't remember where I've heard that, so please don't crucify me if it's longer/shorter.  

 

Third.  Her horse never made it to the wall.  "Her horse was dying under her.  All skin and ribs it was, lame and lathered.  They cut it loose and took the girl for questioning"

 

Fourth. She's heir to one of the Starks major bannermen, and was mentioned as early as ASOS.  With 2.5 books remaining from her mention point, she may be more significant than "just a minor character of no importance."  (It's not like we're saying she's Azor Ahai/PTWP/secretly Lyanna).  And so far, she's been a wonderful solution to giving Jon a political challenge outside the Watch to maneuver. 

 

Fifth.  True.  Although she looks enough like her to give Jon's a moment's thought that it could be her "She looked enough like Arya to give him pause, but only for a moment."  Without testing the controls around information and walking-through Melisandre's prediction process, I can't conclude on the whether the information she's pulling from her R'hollor o'vision information system to be reliably used as evidence for anything (oh god, the training week is getting to me). We don't know what system query she was running.  Even when she runs it with clearly defined search terms "Show me Stannis, Lord, she prayed. Show me your king, your instrument," we get something that has to be interpreted. 

"Visions danced before her, gold and scarlet, flickering, forming and melting and dissolving into one another, shapes strange and terrifying and seductive. She saw the eyeless faces again, staring out at her from sockets weeping blood. Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. Shadows in the shape of skulls, skulls that turned to mist, bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing. Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky."

Of course, the whole little thing (I'm assuming this applies to Meera) doesn't fit Meera either, who was not on a horse, and doesn't wear grey ("She wore lambskin breeches soft with long use, and a sleeveless jerkin armored in bronze scales."), and wasn't to anything that would visibly be called endless water "forgot the quote"  The only piece that not impossibly fits would be a hidden sister element.

 

The whole Meera thing is just another argument from the gaps in our information and wishful thinking, coupled with the added bonus that it at least works for the timeline, which is more than most Jon sibling theories work.

 

 

[1] Re: the pile of wet clothes.  He wasn't paying attention to the clothes, and had just been blinded by steam (why this detail?) in any event.  He never even confirmed the clothes were hers.  All his attention was on the girl he thought was Arya. And when he was disappointed he lost all interest in Mel's stupid prophesy.   I don't agree that lack of contradiction equals confirmation on this point.  As far as you or I or anyone else knows, Alys is a girl in blue-embroidered-with-red-herrings on a very-skinny-but-destined-to-live horse.

 

[2] Long Lake is out of the question for the reasons I stated.  I'm not sure why you are mentioning it as something I overlooked, or why you are mentioning visibility (about 3 miles btw).  It does NOT lie between Karhold and Castle Black; in order to get there one would have to go the wrong way and cross large rivers to do so. Long Lake made sense as a theory when Jon thought Arya was coming from Winterfell.  It might also fit someone fleeing from the Dreadfort.  But it does not fit Alys coming from Karhold.

 

[3]  Alys and her "dying" horse were found 2 leagues south of Mole Town.  From the perspective of someone marking her location on the available large-scale maps, that is "at" Castle Black, or close enough to make no difference for the purpose of this argument.  She is obviously hundreds of miles from Long Lake, or from any other plausible endless lake where Mel may have seen the dying horse.  Dying horses don't travel hundreds of miles.

 

[4]  A character introduced this late is unlikely to be important, if we have any hope that the threads of the story are going to start coming together.  But no, notwithstanding this, I cannot prevent you from speculating that she will turn out to be important.  After all, Mel is making prophesies about her, right?

 

We cannot tell if the prophesy will fit Meera because it is a prophesy.  It is about something that has not happened yet.   We don't know where Meera will be or what Meera will be wearing 1 or 2 books from now when the prophesy comes true.

 

But I'm not really pushing Meera as a solution or supporting the OP's theory.  I am just challenging the idea that Alys Karstark is anything other than a red herring.  I think the Girl in Grey prophesy refers either to Arya or to Sansa or to some other sibling connected to him by his hidden parentage (possibly including Meera, but I can think of other candidates), and concerns something that is yet to happen.

[Taenqyrhae]

i think the only backing a jon/meera twin idea would have, is that they were both born int he same year, and of the same age.

 

 

And they were both raised by the sole survivors of the Tower of Joy, that's the biggest reason right there.  They are also both short, and both remind people of Arya or vice versa.

[Meera of Tarth]

And they were both raised by the sole survivors of the Tower of Joy, that's the biggest reason right there.  They are also both short, and both remind people of Arya or vice versa.

Interesting

[purple-eyes]

How come purple eyes and grey eyes got green eyes? Meera looks typical as a crannogman.
This will only work if reed slept with lyanna somewhere before.

[Regular John Umber]

How come purple eyes and grey eyes got green eyes? Meera looks typical as a crannogman.
This will only work if reed slept with lyanna somewhere before.

Indeed :-) This works if Howland's the daddy

[Taenqyrhae]

How come purple eyes and grey eyes got green eyes? Meera looks typical as a crannogman.
This will only work if reed slept with lyanna somewhere before.

This is another possibility I considered - if Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree, maybe she was doing more than sticking up for a little guy, maybe she was defending her paramour.

Maybe the reason why Ned hid the identity of Jon was to protect his best friend, Howland Reed, from the fury of his other best friend, Robert Baratheon.

[purple-eyes]

This is another possibility I considered - if Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree, maybe she was doing more than sticking up for a little guy, maybe she was defending her paramour.
Maybe the reason why Ned hid the identity of Jon was to protect his best friend, Howland Reed, from the fury of his other best friend, Robert Baratheon.

That is why Reed chose a wife named as jyanna.
This name reminded of his first love.
Lyanna had a baby with reed which angered her father. She run away and was helped accidentally by rhaegar. Then she somehow had another child with rhaegar.
It is quite unusual to die on first birth consider her strong health.
Maybe this is not her first birth.

[Taenqyrhae]

With fraternal twins, it is possible, though rare, for the twins to have different fathers, but they have to have had sex very close together in time.

 

Maybe Lyanna was in love with Howland.  She was having a secret meeting with him some time after the tourney when Rhaegar came across the two lovers.  He put it together and realized she was the Knight of the Laughing Tree, and was angry because he had a crush on her.  He rapes her and kidnaps her, and Lyanna had happened to drop two eggs that cycle, one got fertilized by a Crannogman sperm and the other got fertilized by a Targaryan sperm.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Not to help this garbage out at all, but isn't this just an assumption? (aka, produce a quote and show me I'm wrong)

Quotes are coming...

 

from the wiki:

 

 

 As is typical of crannogmen, Meera is short and slim. She has long brown hair^[3] and green eyes.^[4] 

 

^{From the footnotes pertinent to that...}

 

in ACoK Bran III

 

Though near Robb's age she was slim as a boy, with long brown hair knotted behind her head and only the barest suggestion of breasts. [/quote] 

 

^{in ASoS Bran I}

Meera Reed was sixteen, a woman grown, but she stood no higher than her brother. All the crannogmen were small, she told Bran once when he asked why she wasn't taller.  Brown-haired, green-eyed, and flat as a boy, she walked with supple grace that Bran could only envy.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

purple-eyes and Arya Bolton, if Howland has a thing for Lyanna why is it Ashara Dayne's dance partners he's keeping track of?

[Pancakes1800]

How is this theory gaining any traction? On a site with a bunch of stupid theories, this one is up there.

[purple-eyes]

purple-eyes and Arya Bolton, if Howland has a thing for Lyanna why is it Ashara Dayne's dance partners he's keeping track of?

I honestly think that either ashara is indeed jyanna, or this is just the way GRRM wanted to confuse us on the love affair of ashara. He wanted to make her look more mysterious by dancing with many high lords.

[GCabot]

Quotes are coming...

 

from the wiki:

 

 

 

^{From the footnotes pertinent to that...}

 

in ACoK Bran III

 

 

^{in ASoS Bran I}

 

I am not sure I buy this theory, but to be fair, those quotes you cited do not really establish that Meera looked like a "typical Crannogman." They merely establish that Crannogmen are typically short and slim compared to most people. The statement about her hair and eye color is placed in a separate sentence, indicating that those traits are not necessarily ones of the "typical Crannogman," but rather merely referencing the specific individual traits of Meera herself.

[hallam]

Actually it's not possible unless Jon's father is Howland Reed.  Meera's looks are typical of the Crannogmen.  There is nothing remotely Stark or Targaryen about her.

 

If Jon has a twin there are only four options:

1) it's Aegon, and GRRM has some explaining to do;

2) it's Dany, and GRRM has some explaining to do;

3) it's Allyria Dayne, and GRRM has some explaining to do;

4) the poor kid died, it doesn't matter, and GRRM doesn't have to explain a thing.

 

No, the only way it would make any sense at all is if Jon and Meera were Aegon and Rhaenys. But we are told that the dates don't match.

 

Meera is a minor character and she has had no interaction with Jon of note. It really makes no sense for her to be Jon's sister. 

 

If it wasn't for the small detail of being dead and not knowing about his brother's will, Jon is the Stark heir and king of the North if he wants it. So I am rather puzzled that people think R+L=J which makes him a second tier bastard Targarean pretender is any sort of gamechanger.

 

Starks rule the North and have a serious following. House Targarean really doesn't at this point.

[Stannis th3 Mannis]

Theres ur third head

[Gaia]

With fraternal twins, it is possible, though rare, for the twins to have different fathers, but they have to have had sex very close together in time.

 

Maybe Lyanna was in love with Howland.  She was having a secret meeting with him some time after the tourney when Rhaegar came across the two lovers.  He put it together and realized she was the Knight of the Laughing Tree, and was angry because he had a crush on her.  He rapes her and kidnaps her, and Lyanna had happened to drop two eggs that cycle, one got fertilized by a Crannogman sperm and the other got fertilized by a Targaryan sperm.

 

How is GRRM going to explain that? This theory is very much contrived without the twins of different fathers.