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R+L=J v 59


Stubby

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Is it possible Varys knows about Jon's Parentage, but is keeping quiet because of his plans for Aegon.

I could see one of his little children bringing supplies to Lyanna during pregnancy.

Or he doesnt see him as a threat to Aegon, since he is in the NW.

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Wylla being Jon's wetnurse and being at the TOJ doesn't work because when Cat got to Winterfell Jon and his wetnurse had already taken up residence. How would Wylla have gotten to Winterfell from Dorne quicker than Cat did from Riverrun?

What? Thats trivially easy. Leave at different times for one. If it takes A 3 months and B 1 month to travel, but A leaves 3 months before B, then A gets there first.

Travelling method also matters - travel by ship is generally faster by quite a lot.

Seriously, thats really basic stuff....

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What? Thats trivially easy. Leave at different times for one. If it takes A 3 months and B 1 month to travel, but A leaves 3 months before B, then A gets there first.

Travelling method also matters - travel by ship is generally faster by quite a lot.

Seriously, thats really basic stuff....

Or you just get another wet nurse, it's not a hard occupation to come by in Westeros.

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Is it possible Varys knows about Jon's Parentage, but is keeping quiet because of his plans for Aegon.

I could see one of his little children bringing supplies to Lyanna during pregnancy.

Or he doesnt see him as a threat to Aegon, since he is in the NW.

I don't think he does. He didn't like Rhaegar very much, so why would he help Rhaegar and Lyanna at the Tower of Joy? If he knew where Rhaegar was he'd tell Aerys and more people than just Ser Gerold Highttower would go looking for Rhaegar.

The people supplying R+L were probably the Daynes of Starfall.

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Or you just get another wet nurse, it's not a hard occupation to come by in Westeros.

Why bother?

And when/where is the 'changeover'?

Why not just keep the existing wetnurse, who is demonstarbly trustworthy and committed to Jon Targaryen's secret already, and send her back to Dorne when Jon is weaned?

There's just no downside here. Just people with ridiculous 'problems' that don't exist.

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Why bother?

And when/where is the 'changeover'?

Why not just keep the existing wetnurse, who is demonstarbly trustworthy and committed to Jon Targaryen's secret already, and send her back to Dorne when Jon is weaned?

There's just no downside here. Just people with ridiculous 'problems' that don't exist.

Because the new wet nurse would not know the secret, thus ensuring it stays a secret. No reason having someone who knows around, no accidental slip of the tounge, no ties to his past or the south. The easiest way to protect Jons secret is if nobody knows. All the wet nurse would know is what Ned told her, end of secret.

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Because the new wet nurse would not know the secret, thus ensuring it stays a secret. No reason having someone who knows around, no accidental slip of the tounge, no ties to his past or the south. The easiest way to protect Jons secret is if nobody knows. All the wet nurse would know is what Ned told her, end of secret.

Except that doesn't add up. The original wetnurse already knows. So she's going to be somewhere unless you kill her out of hand, so you can't prevent accidental slips of the tongue etc, if they are going to happen. Indeed, far better for the to happen where he has control and the loyalty of those around him.

Plus, keep her with Jon, and you let her attachment and loyalty grow.

Plus and this is the real kicker, you don't want the woman around who is the actual cover story kind of ruins the point.

She's not the cover story. There is no cover story. Ned simply doesn't tell anyone anything about Jon's mother.

Robert believes that because thats what he would have done, but he never actually met her. I'd guess he guessed Wylla wa sthe mother first and Ned just never denied it, rather than Ned actually told him anything.

Winterfell people think the mother was Ashara, not the wetnurse - so clearly she's not the cover story.

Edric Dayne is just a confused little boy relating stuff he has no clues about, told to him by his aunt, who also probably also has no clues (given her probable age, guessed by her long betrothal). There's nothing that says Wylla actually said she was Jon's mother, just that Edric Dayne believes that (despite believing Ned and Ashara were in love).

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Haha, yes I will have to ask the vets what it is up with this whole Jon is a Targaryen thing. I had a little nod nod wink wink in my post to Gwen who actually had a whole thread on Arthurian legend awhile back. If you look you might just find my name on a few of those links you posted. Now which Frozenfire are you, I lose track sometimes? Your 3, hmmmm do I know number 3? I think I do, maybe that was 8.

Ser, you wound me. FrozenFire ∞ quite obviously and... astigmatically ;)

Btw I was sure you'd appreciate our old little contributions to your fill-me-in plea about Jenny-Duncan-Rhaegar-Lyanna parallel :lol:

I had to smile a little at the idea of Lord Eddard as a functional parent. This is the man who made his seven year old son watch him chop off someone's head.

It is significant that Jon is the one who told Brandon how disappointed their father would be if he looked away. The lesson here is that Eddard is not a touchy-feely father. At least, not to his sons.

He brought his bastard home when others would have let the boy grow up hungry. As far as Eddard was concerned, Jon should be grateful for what he was given, not questioning his Lord father about embarrassing escapades from his youth.

Still it doesn't narratively explain why Ned denied Jon an armless truth while confiding in others.

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Except that doesn't add up. The original wetnurse already knows. So she's going to be somewhere unless you kill her out of hand, so you can't prevent accidental slips of the tongue etc, if they are going to happen. Indeed, far better for the to happen where he has control and the loyalty of those around him.

Plus, keep her with Jon, and you let her attachment and loyalty grow.

She's not the cover story. There is no cover story. Ned simply doesn't tell anyone anything about Jon's mother.

Robert believes that because thats what he would have done, but he never actually met her. I'd guess he guessed Wylla wa sthe mother first and Ned just never denied it, rather than Ned actually told him anything.

Winterfell people think the mother was Ashara, not the wetnurse - so clearly she's not the cover story.

Edric Dayne is just a confused little boy relating stuff he has no clues about, told to him by his aunt, who also probably also has no clues (given her probable age, guessed by her long betrothal). There's nothing that says Wylla actually said she was Jon's mother, just that Edric Dayne believes that (despite believing Ned and Ashara were in love).

I don’t find it so complicated. It’s logical, indeed.

The KG would harm the baby with their gauntlets, and we are well aware that nipples in breastplates are useless. In ToJ had pressing need of a midwife and a wet nurse. That’s Wylla, who was simply the first one in hand.

They arrived to Starfall unknown, and people thought Wylla was Jon’s mother.

They Daynes kept her in their service, so that she wasn’t telling tales.

Jon was sent to White Harbor by ship and took a new nurse, the fisherman’s daughter, who came with him to Winterfell.

When you see un unknown baby sucking from some woman, you normally think she’s his mother. And the small folk wouldn’t receive many explanations.

Eta: The poor little thing seemed to go around Westeros sucking from whatever teat was available.

Eta2: He should starve. Happily they didn’t wash too much. It had ruined the story that some servant sang to Ned:

Your baby is gone with the ravens

Your baby is gone with the trees

The poor little thing

Was so skinny and thin

That he leaked away through the sink

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I don't know about everybody else, but I find this Ruby Chevrolet + Robb's bannerman pairing to be a match made in heaven.

:lmao: Haven't missed the like button so much in half a year...

Wasn't that poster named Robb.

Technically yes, but see above... The only thing that separates the two illogical arguments is that one of them has been argued and categorically refuted here before... more times than I can count.

Eta- I can count, at least as far as I can quickly search my own content...

R+L=J v. 43

R+L=J v. 45

R+L=J v. 56

A stroll down memory lane has also reminded me that this theory becomes more confused and convoluted with each presentation. Almost like someone is grasping at straws in their desperation to NOT believe R+L=J :dunno:

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What? Not even close. The Strait of Gibraltar is about 9 miles at its narrowest. White Harbor sits at about 300 miles from the Vale, and 200 miles from the Sisters, using the size of the Wall as a scale.

You are missing the point. The fisherman and his daughter travel by boat around the Bite. The biggest port in the area is White Harbor. Much like the Mediterranean, there is going to be commerce among the people from one side to the other. That is why you find cultural exchange between Southern Europe and Northern Africa and between the Fingers and White Harbor.

This is very obvious if you look at the map.

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I think you're underestimating these people's knowledge of where babies come from. The way both Ned and Catelyn think of the events points to Ned having sex with a woman after he married Catelyn. His comments are only ambiguous if you're deadset on a bullshit fisherman's daughter story that is so obviously wrong it baffles me that anyone still publicly takes it seriously.

Actually it is explicitly stated where and when Ned allegedly left the fisherman's-daughter-who-absolutely-nothing-suggests-was-named-Wylla. Borrell pretty unambiguously says that Ned "left her" after she helped him get across, and that the bastard she allegedly conceived with him was conceived that night. As in, she helped Ned across, he paid her and left. That's it. And again, given the timeline, whatever baby she may have had, if it was even Ned's, it wouldn't and couldn't have been Jon.

And why would Ned send her to Starfall?

You are reading some immediacy into the time Eddard left her that just is not found in the story. Cutting through the condescending tone of your posts and all the cursing (you really need to cut that out, it is very unpleasant) it looks like you are starting with a pre determined conclusion (Wylla can't be the fisherman's daughter because it threatens the theory you had before you read Dance with Dragons) and working backwards from it.

On sending Wylla to Starfall, the answer is in the post where I set out the theory a few pages back. Since you are criticizing the theory I assumed you had read it. Eddard sent Wylla to Starfall after he saw how upset Catelyn was on finding Jon at Winterfell. He wanted to find her a good job as far as possible from Winterfell, so he sent her to his friends in Dorne. The rest of it (how it ties in so well with Edric Dayne's story and so on) is in my earlier post.

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Because it pertains to the current discussion, I thought I'd repost what I had to say in v.45 about Wylla and the (red) Herring, er... fisherman's daughter:

First, Ned's conversation with Robert about Wylla seems pretty clear on two points:
  • His "relationship" with Wylla was brief


    "She must been a rare wench if she could make Lord Eddard Stark forget his honor, even for an hour"Robert's statement implies a fling, not a sustained relationship or camp follower.
  • Ned was married when he had the supposed "relationship" with Wylla


    "I dishonored myself and I dishonored Catelyn, in the sights of gods and men...I had taken her to wife. She was carrying my child."

The only other mention we get of Wylla is from Edric Dayne

"Jon Snow's mother...She's served us for years and years. Since before I was born."

Conclusion we could draw based on this: about eight or nine months prior to the Sack of KL (based on the SSM fixing Jon's birthdate, Catelyn's observation of his age relative to Robb and Ned's statements quoted above) Ned had a fling with a peasant woman of unknown origin who then gave her son Jon Snow to his father, who was seized with the inexplicable desire to parade the proof of his dishonor before his wife and House, and went to or remained in Dorne to serve House Dayne. Not a hint of a connection to the Vale or White Harbor.

**Of course, we could also read between the lines and note the confusion in Edric Dayne's story: Ned was simultaneously in love with Ashara Dayne and fathering Jon Snow on Wylla- hardly the behavior of a man who later professes his disgust with himself to his friend Robert. We could also note his stiffness and refusal to discuss the matter with his best friend. We are given the impression he has only ever provided this information to Robert out of the necessity of explaining Jon's origin. This has all been discussed here and will continue to be.

Of the FD, we know that she originated in the area of the Fingers

"To get home and call his banners, Stark had to cross the mountains to the Fingers and find a fisherman to carry him across the Bite... the fisherman died, but his daughter got Stark to the Sisters before the boat went down."

Lord Borrell continues

"They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow she named him, after Arryn."

This is puzzling. Why name the babe after Ned's foster father? Also, while the surname Snow seems to favor her originating on the north side of the Bite, by the logic of equating names with regional origin, the child being named after the Lord of the Eyrie favors the Fingers. If Jon Arryn weren't specified, the name Jon itself gives us no clues: a search of the wiki gives us Jons across the Seven Kingdoms. It is not a regional name, and in fact seems as common as "John" IRL.

Wylla Manderley belongs to a northern family with origins in the Reach. We have no other Wyllas on the text. The characters with "Wy" at the beginning of their names are mostly from White Harbor or the Reach. There are exceptions: men named Wyl in the North, Riverlands and Vale and Wynafrei Whent of the Riverlands. There is a place called Wyl located on the North end of the Boneway. It does not appear that a regional interpretation of the name Wylla, or Wy- names in general clearly favors any one area.

Then we have the timing of the FD. Given the interpretation suggested by Ned's exchange with Robert, how are we to reconcile the FD story with Wylla? Lord Borrell says "he left her... with a bastard in her belly." It seems clear that Ned left the girl before the child was born. In other words, the birth of the FD's son would be about six months earlier than Jon Snow's if the conception occurred during the time of Ned's escape from the Vale and Ned was long gone when it happened. If, as has been suggested, the girl followed Ned around for months during the war, are we supposed to believe that, in addition to willfully dishonoring himself for an extended period of time, he took the time in the middle of the war to return her to her home and "left her" pregnant, months after he was last reported being there? If she was the Wylla who landed in Dorne, he could hardly be said to have "left her with a bastard in her belly"-- Ned (supposedly) took the bastard of Wylla with him. Imo, Lord Borrell's statement implies that the FD's child was born in and remained in the region of the Bite. The camp follower theory (in order to get the FD's Jon to the proper age) also supposes that Ned had this woman in tow when he married Catelyn (Or had her stashed somewhere?) this seems like grasping at straws to me.

It's much more likely the FD is a true red herring and was already pregnant when she met Ned. Thus the statement about him "leaving her" with a bastard is explained.

Wylla is another case altogether. There have been many discussions about her and her role in previous iterations of this thread. I wonder how many of those the proponents of the "Wylla is the Fisherman's Daughter is Jon Snow's mother" theory have read? Or is Ashara the mother? Maybe all three are the same... I have to confess I'm very confused by some of the arguments I've seen here lately.

I still am :blink:

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Because it pertains to the current discussion, I thought I'd repost what I had to say in v.45 about Wylla and the (red) Herring, er... fisherman's daughter:

I still am :blink:

:lol: Well done, Lady G. Repetita iuvant, especially on this thread. Allow me to add a tiny bit to your brilliant analysis:

Ned had a fling with a peasant woman of unknown origin who then gave her son Jon Snow to his father, who was seized with the inexplicable desire to parade the proof of his dishonor before his wife and House and to cruelly take the newborn away from his mother, and went to or remained in Dorne to serve House Dayne.

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Why bother?

And when/where is the 'changeover'?

Why not just keep the existing wetnurse, who is demonstarbly trustworthy and committed to Jon Targaryen's secret already, and send her back to Dorne when Jon is weaned?

There's just no downside here. Just people with ridiculous 'problems' that don't exist.

I agree with this. I have always thought it would make no sense for Ned to ditch Jon's wetnurse and either get a new one or have some kind of wetnurse relay from the TOJ to Winterfell.

The only thing that makes me pause a little is SF Danny's point: for Wylla to be a wet nurse she would have to have a baby who is a little older than Jon -- assuming as I do that she is not Jon's mother. If that child was alive and still an infant Wylla might not want to go all the way to Winterfell with Jon.

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You are reading some immediacy into the time Eddard left her that just is not found in the story. Cutting through the condescending tone of your posts and all the cursing (you really need to cut that out, it is very unpleasant) it looks like you are starting with a pre determined conclusion (Wylla can't be the fisherman's daughter because it threatens the theory you had before you read Dance with Dragons) and working backwards from it.

You know, even if AM was wrong and the fisherman's daughter was indeed Wylla the wetnurse, it doesn't matter in the least because neither is Jon's mother.

On sending Wylla to Starfall, the answer is in the post where I set out the theory a few pages back. Since you are criticizing the theory I assumed you had read it. Eddard sent Wylla to Starfall after he saw how upset Catelyn was on finding Jon at Winterfell. He wanted to find her a good job as far as possible from Winterfell, so he sent her to his friends in Dorne. The rest of it (how it ties in so well with Edric Dayne's story and so on) is in my earlier post.

ROFL. Really. The North is big. It's not like Catelyn spends her time touring the territory, so White Harbour or Deepwood Motte would be perfectly sufficient and Cat would never see the wetnurse again.

Besides, what is the point in sending the wetnurse as far as possible if the main offender still stays in Winterfell.

She's not the cover story. There is no cover story. Ned simply doesn't tell anyone anything about Jon's mother.

Robert believes that because thats what he would have done, but he never actually met her. I'd guess he guessed Wylla wa sthe mother first and Ned just never denied it, rather than Ned actually told him anything.

Winterfell people think the mother was Ashara, not the wetnurse - so clearly she's not the cover story.

Edric Dayne is just a confused little boy relating stuff he has no clues about, told to him by his aunt, who also probably also has no clues (given her probable age, guessed by her long betrothal). There's nothing that says Wylla actually said she was Jon's mother, just that Edric Dayne believes that (despite believing Ned and Ashara were in love).

I'd suggest caution here. The good folks of Winterfell gossip about Ned and Ashara possibly being in a relationship, or perhaps even having an affair, but except Catelyn in her insecurity, we don't have a single hint that someone at Winterfell actually thinks her Jon's mother. If Harwin is anything to go by, then we can conclude:

- no-one connects Ashara and Jon

- the only time-frame when Ned and Ashara met was the HH tourney

- even the HH romance is uncertain

The first two points are interconnected - if HH is the only occasion when people saw Ned and Ashara together, then it makes sense that no-one thinks Ashara is Jon's mother because he is too young to have been conceived at Harrenhall.

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I agree with this. I have always thought it would make no sense for Ned to ditch Jon's wetnurse and either get a new one or have some kind of wetnurse relay from the TOJ to Winterfell.

The only thing that makes me pause a little is SF Danny's point: for Wylla to be a wet nurse she would have to have a baby who is a little older than Jon -- assuming as I do that she is not Jon's mother. If that child was alive and still an infant Wylla might not want to go all the way to Winterfell with Jon.

To this point I have always wondered about a young man named Wyl who was a member of Ned's guard that went from WF to KL. Sadly he was killed by the Lannisters in the ambush outside Chataya's.

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The only thing that makes me pause a little is SF Danny's point: for Wylla to be a wet nurse she would have to have a baby who is a little older than Jon -- assuming as I do that she is not Jon's mother. If that child was alive and still an infant Wylla might not want to go all the way to Winterfell with Jon.

I really don't care who Jon's wet nurse was at Winterfell, nor do I think it's all that important. However, someone correct me if I'm wrong, I think women can lactate indefinitely so long as they at least semi-regularl mammary stimulation occurs. One need not have recently had a child in order to produce milk. Most literature I've ever read indicates that it's suckling that induces lactation, though hormones associated with pregnancy help begin lactation initially. I've known adoptive mothers who breastfeed without hormone assistance.

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That's true, but the blue rose in the background scenes (as depicted on the stained glass window), I think is more for the true fan than the casual viewer. The casual viewer may never be moved to pick up a history book and research all the connections between aSoIaF and historical accounts, (i.e., the Red Wedding vs. the Black Dinner).

But, for that nod to the viewer who understands the importance of the blue rose, I am not worried, and I'm sure it will be spelled out for casual, TV viewer.

Yeah , sure we cannot put all the fans in the same bucket.

We only have to wait and see.

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