Septa Lemore is?

[Mayura]

snip

Very good post, thank you for doing the summary :)

But I'm still not convinced about Ashara = Lemore

1) because of Jon Connington's POV.

Well, ASOIAF is a serie of books. GRRM shows us what he wants us to know through the eyes of his POVs. Clearly, he wanted us to know about Lemore being more than she seems but he didn't want to reveal too much. In addition: as others have stated, when you've been with someone for so many years and you've given them a nickname, that nickname sticks. I have a friend who we call "Raindeer". And it happened that I couldn't remember his regular firstname by the way, because we're so used to his nick ;) so, IMO, the fact JonCon doesn't explicitely say "ASHARA DAYNE" in his thoughts doesn't mean Lemore isn't in fact AD. If we follow your argument, in fact, that would mean that Septa Lemore can only be a "septa" who is called "Lemore", if we postulate that the POV characters are only allowed to use other characters's real identities when referring to them. However, both JonCon (by calling her Lady) and Tyrion (by repeatedly questionning her identity "who is she really? Is she even a septa?") made it clear that she might not really be "septa Lemore". (might be a red herring, but then it's a red herring GRRM really really wanted us to believe).

2) because we already have the whole "long thought dead person comes back alive" plot, with Jon Con, incidentally.

Come on, how about (f)Aegon then? In the same book, there are two characters who were supposed to be dead who return from the seven hells. Why not Lemore? It would only make sense to have a team, around Aegon, made of people who could still be useful for his claim but are presumed dead and are not expected to show up. Also, look at the examples of Arya, Bran and Rickon, Tyrion, Davos, Catelyn and even maybe Jon. If Catelyn Stark can come back from the grave as zombie Cat, yes, I think more than one character can prove to be a "long thought dead person comes back alive".

3) because I'm not convinced she would lie to Jon about Aegon being fake.This of course tells you that I support the theory of Aegon being the son of Illyrio.

This is actually the point I wanted to comment initially because, actually, LEMORE is showed to believe, in ADWD, that Aegon is the real deal:

Chapter 24, ADWD, The Lost Lord (JonCon POV), Lemore is talking to him and says:

"If Hugor's head was worth a lord's honors, how much will Cersei Lannister pay for the rightful heir to the Iron Throne?"

If you re-read that same chapter, everything Lemore says reflects that she thinks Aegon is Aegon Targaryen. So I think that, whoever Lemore is, she doesn't seem to know Aegon is fake (if he actually is fake) or she is faking it like an absolute master. But as a personal opinion, I don't think Varys or Illyrio would have put Aegon around people who know he is not the real deal if, actually, he isn't the real deal. All it would take would be the words of one of them to make a 18 yo plan fail. As far as I am concerned, I think all of the people who are close to Aegon believe he is real. (although, yes, that is speculation).

4) because Lemore's physical characteristics could match plenty of other women

Well, I understand you don't want Lemore to be Ashara, and that is your choice as a reader. But you cannot discard the clues that would make other readers think she could be...

• same hair color, roughly the same age (roughly, we don't know what age Ashara was), golden skin (dornish colorings), good swimmer, flirty attitude, has been pregnant
  

So, I agree this description could fit a whole lot of other women in the world, but not in GRRM's story. Until now, the only woman described in GRRM's universe that roughly fits with what we know of Lemore is Ashara Dayne. Yes, Lemore might be just Lemore or RandomCharacter, but I feel there aren't a lot of good arguments to say it is *unthinkable* Lemore = Ashara. I give you the fact that Tyrion doesn't notice her eyes, yes. But as a POV character, he notices only what GRRM wants him to notice. The rest of Lemore's description fits best with Ashara, of all of the known candidates.

I personally think the red herring is Tyene Sand's mother, the "liberated septa". I think this is meant for us to think "ha, liberated septa, so yes, no mystery, she is the septa with Aegon" and turn the attention of the reader away from other possibilities.

It is funny because it really looks like I want Lemore to be Ashara but I would actually not be disappointed at all if she wasn't. I just think it looks like it really is the best explanation so far, both for her character development and for the narrative of the story.

Edit: @corbon: very sorry, I just read your post and I noticed I basically wrote the same stuff with different words! So... I agree with you ;-) (shows that I should read all of the thread before jumping in the "reply" section)

[AssHat Ahai]

Corbon, I'm not piling on here, so please don't take it that way. I'm almost convinced that the plot is convoluted enough without me helping it along. I can go with the "It really doesn't matter what Illyrio and Varys are up to or if (f) Aeogon is fake, Lemore still could be Ashara regardless". I certainly have no problem with R+L=J. I can even go with everyone being a better judge of an individual's achievement of developmental milestones than our most perceptive POV character. And Baristan is pretty seasoned. But

your response is effectively "nothing to see here, move along"?

is a bit hypocritical considering your complete dismissal of the entire Ashara Dayne got knocked up by a Stark bombshell by effectively saying "well, it was stillborn so nothing to see here. End of that carefully constructed plot line. Please ignore the subsequent meeting with the Head Stark toting the New and True Born King of Westeros. Oh, and her coincident fake suicide to raise another Trueborn King of Westeros. What with all the comings and goings after the rebellion, random coincidental meetings and faked suicides and baby pass-offs are bound to happen concurrently but independently at Arthur Daynes house once in a while." What is the point of having the Stark-Ashara-pregnancy storyline just to dead end at a stillbirth. Just so she can have milk for (f)Aeogon and stretch marks for Tyrion to notice? It really doesn't even seem to be an effective red herring. Being a major part of the mayor backstory focus on Harrenhall, it almost has to be relevant to the resolution of this thing that she got pregnant BY A STARK and then faked her suicide when Ned and J+L came to town.

Hey, by the way. I can't figure out how to Quote portions of posts. I have been quoting the whole thing and deleting the extra, which is becoming prohibitively cumbersome. Can anybody help me? Thanks.

The Hat

[corbon]

Do we know how does Lemore look like? More specifically, where is it mentioned she looks dornish? Or, better yet, where is it mentioned that she is Dornish?

She is a westerosi noble with golden skin. Look up the westerois genotypes, or whatever the correct term is.

That scenario strongly favours theory that Young Griff is indeed Aegon. Ashara, being Elia's lady-in-waiting, likely saw her son a number of times and would have recognized fake Aegon.

No it does not, because its actually unlikely she ever saw Aegon for real, especially not beyond the first few months. She was disgraced as a result of Harrenhal, we believe because she got pregnant there. Aegon himself was conceived only around that time. So she would have been disgraced and left court probably well before he was born.

You also have to remember that this would be a fake Aegon specifically chosen because he looks alike. So she'd see a 15ish month old kid that looks like Aegon, and even if she had been around for a while after his borth, unless she'd been in KL during the war, she wouldn't have seen him since he was 3 months or so old.

I am terrible with timelines and ages, so someone help me here, but we don't really know Ashara's age, do we? I've seen people post that she was a contemporary of Ned so Lemore is too old. Do we know that she was the same age as Ned? What if she was the same age as Brandon? He slept with Lady Dustin and she is described as handsome too.

No we don't know her age. What we know is that at Harrenhal she was a young noblewoman newly come to Court as Princess Elia's companion/handmaid/whatever. She danced there with Jon Con (20ish), her older brother Arthur (suspected early twenties to be close-ish to Rhaegar's age), Oberyn Martell (16-18 IIRC, but already famous for killing a lord in a duel over a woman) and 18 year old shy Ned after talking with 20 year old Brandon.

We know that Elia was in her early twenties at that time and had a baby daughter already. It seems likely she'd want a capable companion close to her own age, not an immature young girl.

So our best guess is that Ashara was around 20ish at Harrenhal, give or take a year or two. But that is still a guess.

And yes, its therefore likely that she was a contemproary of Brandon. A lot of people are still stuck in a time warp, convinced N+A were an item at Harrenhal - a theory that made sense and felt right before ADwD, due to the later rumours and readers (me included) giving that shy dance a nice romantic glow in their light. However ADwD showed us that Brandon, who was the one she actually talked to at Harrenhal, and who's bidding she did, was something of a rakish character, perfectly capable of bedding a young noblewoman then abandoning her. Even more pertinently, Barristan, who was around and almost certainly paying attention, given his own crush, notes that young girls always choose "fire men" instead of "mud men". He's think of Dany and Daario at the time, but he say always, indicating he's got other experience - the only other experience we know of for him, is Ashara Dayne. So it seems he believes Ashara chose a fire man (Brandon is almost the quintessential fire man) and not a mud man (Ned is almost the quintessential mud man).

So after ADwD, we re-examine the N+A story and find that there are actually no real hints to a relationship from Meera's story, potentially just an outgoing big brother getting a girl to try to get shy little brother out of himself, the rumours are all post Starfall/Jon/suicide, and Ned Dayne's story is inconsistent and of dubious providence given Allyria's apparent age.

I personally think the red herring is Tyene Sand's mother, the "liberated septa". I think this is meant for us to think "ha, liberated septa, so yes, no mystery, she is the septa with Aegon" and turn the attention of the reader away from other possibilities.

It is funny because it really looks like I want Lemore to be Ashara but I would actually not be disappointed at all if she wasn't. I just think it looks like it really is the best explanation so far, both for her character development and for the narrative of the story.

Edit: @corbon: very sorry, I just read your post and I noticed I basically wrote the same stuff with different words! So... I agree with you ;-) (shows that I should read all of the thread before jumping in the "reply" section)

No problem. Its nice not to be a voice alone. And incidentally, we are in exact same position. I too always look like I really want or am convinced Lemore+Ashara, but I'm not actually bothered if she is or not (I trust GRRM to write in in well either way), just following the textual clues. And demolishin the bad counter0arguments because they are bad arguments, not because I don't like their result.

Corbon, I'm not piling on here, so please don't take it that way.

No problem.

is a bit hypocritical considering your complete dismissal of the entire Ashara Dayne got knocked up by a Stark bombshell by effectively saying "well, it was stillborn so nothing to see here. End of that carefully constructed plot line. Please ignore the subsequent meeting with the Head Stark toting the New and True Born King of Westeros. Oh, and her coincident fake suicide to raise another Trueborn King of Westeros. What with all the comings and goings after the rebellion, random coincidental meetings and faked suicides and baby pass-offs are bound to happen concurrently but independently at Arthur Daynes house once in a while." What is the point of having the Stark-Ashara-pregnancy storyline just to dead end at a stillbirth. Just so she can have milk for (f)Aeogon and stretch marks for Tyrion to notice? It really doesn't even seem to be an effective red herring. Being a major part of the mayor backstory focus on Harrenhall, it almost has to be relevant to the resolution of this thing that she got pregnant BY A STARK and then faked her suicide when Ned and J+L came to town.

I don't see it as hypocritical at all.

On the one hand we have a minor data point that has a small but useful purpose, and it is advocated that we must treat this data point as false, even though there is no evidence against it at all. I'm not saying "move along here, nothing to see", I'm saying "we saw this, it has a purpose, we don't have to invent it being false and account for that."

The stark/dayne background story helps disguise R+L=J, as initially Ashara looks like the likely mother - in large part due to those rumours and the stories from Harrenhal.

The stillbirth helps disguise Lemore as not-Ashara - Ashara was initially not on the radar as Lemore partly because of those stretchmarks and we didn't know Ashara had a child at all. A stillbirth accounts for this, yet means we don't have to worry about a missing child. I didn't set that up, GRRM did! I'm just following his script, not inventing my own here.

Oh, and BTW, if Aegon is real, Jon is not the true born King of Westeros, Aegon is. But each character plays their part based on the knowledge (or misiformation) they are privy too.

Hey, by the way. I can't figure out how to Quote portions of posts. I have been quoting the whole thing and deleting the extra, which is becoming prohibitively cumbersome. Can anybody help me? Thanks.

The Hat

Sorry, no. I just copy and paste the opening half of the quotation special text repeatedly (in the appropriate places), then copy and paste the closing part repeatedly t match, deleting any parts of the actual quote that I don't need.

[AssHat Ahai]

The stark/dayne background story helps disguise R+L=J, as initially Ashara looks like the likely mother - in large part due to those rumours and the stories from Harrenhal.

Ok, I think I get it. The Stark+Ashara storyline IS really included to serve as a lame red herring (though maybe to make me think Jon is really Neds bastard by Ashara rather than my more convoluted Brandons bastard being raised as Neds) capable of fooling only rubes such as myself and easily ferreted out by a careful examination of a timeline. This also explains Neds visit to Starfall to further make me think something is up with Jon and Ashara. See, I thought the less blatantly implied R+L=J was the real red herring, and a twist on the blatant more satisfying, albeit unnecessary.

The stillbirth helps disguise Lemore as not-Ashara - Ashara was initially not on the radar as Lemore partly because of those stretchmarks and we didn't know Ashara had a child at all. A stillbirth accounts for this, yet means we don't have to worry about a mthe careful issing child. I didn't set that up, GRRM did! I'm just following his script, not inventing my own here.

Ok, so if I'm reading this correctly, the important thing about Ashara's pregnancy is that it existed and that it terminated in a stillbirth. This couples with Septa Lemores description to first obfuscate her identity, but the careful reader is later given a valuable clue. Hmm. See, I thought the important thing about the pregnancy is that it was by a Stark.

Oh, and BTW, if Aegon is real, Jon is not the true born King of Westeros, Aegon is.

Duh.

Sorry, no. I just copy and paste the opening half of the quotation special text repeatedly (in the appropriate places), then copy and paste the closing part repeatedly t match, deleting any parts of the actual quote that I don't need.

This tip actually helped a lot. I wouldn't have had the patience to include the last "Duh" without it.

This will probably be my last timely post on this subject, but would welcome any further comments.

The Hat

Upon rereading this post, I think I may have sounded like I was butt-hurt by corbons sound and highly cogent arguments. That was not the case at all. I really enjoyed the comments and just find it difficult to persist in my attempts to play the devils advocate. I was only being slightly sarcastic, except the Duh part. I hope we all get to see how it really plays out.

[Roadside Rose]

Lynesse Hightower?

Just throwing another possiblity out there. :dunno:

[King of Winters]

Lynesse Hightower?

Just throwing another possiblity out there. :dunno:

Anyone but Ashara Dayne is fine by me :D

[Jon's Queen Consort]

Anyone but Ashara Dayne is fine by me :D

:agree:

Seriously? :stunned:

Tyrion picks up she has secrets, Jon Con clearly knows she is not just a Septa, but is in fact a Lady, and she explicitly tells JonCon that he is not the only one with an identity to hide, with the contextual implication that she is also hiding an identity, and your response is effectively "nothing to see here, move along"?

Who are you and what have you done to Jon's Queen Consort!?

More to the point, its not that you don't necessarily believe it yourself, but that you can't understand why anyone else might have some suspicions?

I just don't see the point to argue over something that neither me nor you will change your mind and it's kind of both its not that you don't necessarily believe it yourself & can't understand why anyone else might have some suspicions

[The Dragon Queen]

Lyanna Stark

[NoneofYourBiz]

No we don't know her age. What we know is that at Harrenhal she was a young noblewoman newly come to Court as Princess Elia's companion/handmaid/whatever. She danced there with Jon Con (20ish), her older brother Arthur (suspected early twenties to be close-ish to Rhaegar's age), Oberyn Martell (16-18 IIRC, but already famous for killing a lord in a duel over a woman) and 18 year old shy Ned after talking with 20 year old Brandon.

We know that Elia was in her early twenties at that time and had a baby daughter already. It seems likely she'd want a capable companion close to her own age, not an immature young girl.

So our best guess is that Ashara was around 20ish at Harrenhal, give or take a year or two. But that is still a guess.

And yes, its therefore likely that she was a contemproary of Brandon. A lot of people are still stuck in a time warp, convinced N+A were an item at Harrenhal - a theory that made sense and felt right before ADwD, due to the later rumours and readers (me included) giving that shy dance a nice romantic glow in their light. However ADwD showed us that Brandon, who was the one she actually talked to at Harrenhal, and who's bidding she did, was something of a rakish character, perfectly capable of bedding a young noblewoman then abandoning her. Even more pertinently, Barristan, who was around and almost certainly paying attention, given his own crush, notes that young girls always choose "fire men" instead of "mud men". He's think of Dany and Daario at the time, but he say always, indicating he's got other experience - the only other experience we know of for him, is Ashara Dayne. So it seems he believes Ashara chose a fire man (Brandon is almost the quintessential fire man) and not a mud man (Ned is almost the quintessential mud man).

So after ADwD, we re-examine the N+A story and find that there are actually no real hints to a relationship from Meera's story, potentially just an outgoing big brother getting a girl to try to get shy little brother out of himself, the rumours are all post Starfall/Jon/suicide, and Ned Dayne's story is inconsistent and of dubious providence given Allyria's apparent age.

Agreed with all of the above, that's exactly how I read it.

I don't understand the vehemence some have against the possibility that Lemore is Ashara. It's completely fine to not reach the same supposition,or not read the same things into the text. However, GRRMs writing is chock full of people coming back from the dead, in one form or another, or taking new identities. It's an ongoing theme through the series, and if Ashara is yet one more does that really throw everyone's feng shui so out of whack? What is it about Lemore possibly being Ashara that is so offensive? Yes, the back from the dead thing is overplayed, but it certainly hasn't kept GRRM from doing many times before, has it? At least her "resurrection" would bring some interesting insight into past events and possible intrigue with Barristan. I've yet to understand why Cat had to come back from the dead, but I'll keep reading to see if it ultimately serves some purpose.

I have a strong suspicion that we will find a lot of what we supposed about Robert's Rebellion is not what we thought it was. GRRM is slowly revealing the narrative we were given at the beginning of the series is not quite what we thought. We'll need the perspectives of people who were there to reveal the events of the past and that opens the possibility of a reappearance of Howland Reed and/or Ashara Dayne, and probably some flashes of the past glimpsed by Bran the Greenseer.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

Lyanna Stark

:shocked: wut?

[Knight Of Winter]

:shocked: wut?

Oh, come, theories get way weirder than that :P

As long-time participant in Lemore discussions, I've seen theories that she is Joanna Lannister, Tytos' mistress, daughter of Mors Umber (the one captured by wildlings) or daughter of Alys Arryn.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

Oh, come, theories get way weirder than that :P

As long-time participant in Lemore discussions, I've seen theories that she is Joanna Lannister, Tytos' mistress, daughter of Mors Umber (the one captured by wildlings) or daughter of Alys Arryn.

I know but Lyanna? LYANNA? I realy want to hear the evidence/proofs behind this theory. I doubt that there are any though.

[Mayura]

Here is an interesting question to raise: why do you guys absolutely don't want AD to be Lemore? Because that seems to be the main problem here, you'd rather Lemore was "anyone but Ashara" while the text is, at the moment, pointing at Ashara to be the most likely candidate.

I have seen some of the posters here say they were totally on board with the Howland Reed + Ashara and Ashara and Arthur are well, alive and hiding at Howland's house. To be honest, I think that theory is well written but it involves much more "dead people coming back to life" and it leaves space for far more plot holes (like: why does Ashara has to hide, nobody cares if she goes live with Howland Reed, really...) than AD = Lemore :dunno:

I am just very curious, although I respect all theories, it is good to have a place to speculate and share our thoughts

[Cressen's Fury]

Many people seem to think that Lemore is AD. Many of the arguments seem to be consistent with my pet (crackpot) theory that she is Lady Joanna. Joanna died around childbirth, was a childhood friend with a Martell. I personally think Tyrion would have noticed Ashara's purple eyes, as he was specifically looking for a Targaeryen. However, green eyes would not be as noticeable if he had grown up around green-eyed people.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

Many people seem to think that Lemore is AD. Many of the arguments seem to be consistent with my pet (crackpot) theory that she is Lady Joanna. Joanna died around childbirth, was a childhood friend with a Martell. I personally think Tyrion would have noticed Ashara's purple eyes, as he was specifically looking for a Targaeryen. However, green eyes would not be as noticeable if he had grown up around green-eyed people.

If that is true where was Joanna from 274-283 (at least)?

[Mayura]

Many people seem to think that Lemore is AD. Many of the arguments seem to be consistent with my pet (crackpot) theory that she is Lady Joanna. Joanna died around childbirth, was a childhood friend with a Martell. I personally think Tyrion would have noticed Ashara's purple eyes, as he was specifically looking for a Targaeryen. However, green eyes would not be as noticeable if he had grown up around green-eyed people.

Lady Joanna died birthing Tyrion. I doubt nobody has witnessed her death by the way... And Tyrion is 26/27. Which means Lady Joanna would have faked her death nearly 10 years before the rebellion and before Aegon was born :o

[The Bastard of Summer]

Okay I'm going to throw my unhelpful two cents in now. I once believed that Septa Lemore was Ashara Dayne 90%. But sine reading the theory by MaidenandWarrior the H+A= M&J I have dropped down to a belief 50% that SL=AD. Its's a pretty good theory and a great read. However I am still of the belief that she is not just some Septa. I do not think she is Tyene's mother either. If she where then she would have blonde hair like her daughter. Oberyn has black hair so where would blonde come from? Could be recessive. Lemores hair is dark brown. It's possible that she could be dying her hair, but Tyrion would have noticed blonde pubes when she got naked to swim. Then she also might be fond of shaving her pubes. But Tyrion didn't notice a bald beaver (yeah he failed to mention eye color but I wont get into that).

Now my next opinion is not a popular opinion.

I believe that Aegon is who they say he is. The son of Elia and Rhaegar. Yes there are clues that point out he could be an imposter. But I choose not to bite. It it turns out he's not I won't be upset. I choose to believe that the clues that he could be fake are a red herring. Just like I don't believe Dany is AAR and her dragons are Lightbringer. It's all put there for misdirection and to make you doubt.

Now a what I do thiink is possible but I do not subscribe not even 20% to is that Aegon could be really Aegon but is the son of Ashara and Brandon Stark. Why are they hiding out? Maybe they are Targ loyalist and working with Varys and Illyrio to put him on the throne as Elia and Rhaegars Aegon. His Targ looks could also be recessive??? On second thought I dont subscribe to this at all. Not even 2%

[Kubitsuri]

I don't understand the vehemence some have against the possibility that Lemore is Ashara.

(...) if Ashara is yet one more does that really throw everyone's feng shui so out of whack? What is it about Lemore possibly being Ashara that is so offensive?

Ditto on that.

I'd be really interested in an answer to that question.

[Mayura]

Honestly, I am amazed that readers buy the Ashara + Howland theory (which is beautifully written but which is also absolutely 99% speculation and is closer to a nicely thought fanfiction than what actually happens in the books - no offense to the OP of the theory, I loved it but it has so many plot holes and the text evidence is unexistant, so I can't get on board) but fail to see the possible connection between Lemore and Ashara :P

Whether Aegon is fake or not is completely irrelevant to the identity of Lemore anyway, she seems to believe he is the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms. Varys and Illyrio need people who can testify of Aegon's identity. So whoever she is, she is someone useful to Varys's plan and to Aegon.

[King of Winters]

Honestly, I am amazed that readers buy the Ashara + Howland theory (which is beautifully written but which is also absolutely 99% speculation and is closer to a nicely thought fanfiction than what actually happens in the books - no offense to the OP of the theory, I loved it but it has so many plot holes and the text evidence is unexistant, so I can't get on board) but fail to see the possible connection between Lemore and Ashara :P

Whether Aegon is fake or not is completely irrelevant to the identity of Lemore anyway, she seems to believe he is the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms. Varys and Illyrio need people who can testify of Aegon's identity. So whoever she is, she is someone useful to Varys's plan and to Aegon.

People don't 100% buy the Howland + Ashara, like me, but we do like it and I think a lot of people think it's the best Ashara is alive theory.

As for Aegon being fake, if Lemore was a Blackfyre supporter (which I don't think she is) she would view Aegon as the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms, as the Blackfyres, and their supporters, have always thought that.