BTW, voice , kingmonkey , one or both of you mentioned a SSM about there being two survivors at ToJ (I can't seem to find where I saw it) ... do you have a link for that?
I'm digging around, but am having some trouble finding it. markg171 may have it handy. I feel like it came from a reddit user.
It wasn't the most carefully-worded question, and GRRM used that to his advantage.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
It wasn't the most carefully-worded question, and GRRM used that to his advantage
Pretty sure it was from some con a year ago. If I recall someone asked if Eddard and Howland were the only two to leave the TOJ or something, as they were trying to sneakily ask if Arthur possibly survived as well, and GRRM replied like only Eddard and Howland survived or only 2 men left the tower or something like that. If I recall it was tricky because different people were giving different accounts on what GRRM actually said, on whether he'd specifically said that only Eddard and Howland left or whether he'd said men had left (i.e Wylla, Jon, and Moonboy for all we know also left).
But yeah, someone did ask about the TOJ like a year ago and GRRM answered something to the effect of the above. That either only Howland and Ned left or they were the only men who left.
Your lordship lost a son at the Red Wedding. I lost four upon the Blackwater. And why? Because the Lannisters stole the throne. Go to King’s Landing and look on Tommen with your own eyes, if you doubt me. A blind man could see it. What does Stannis offer you? Vengeance. Vengeance for my sons and yours, for your husbands and your fathers and your brothers. Vengeance for your murdered lord, your murdered king, your butchered princes. Vengeance!
Yup again. Ned gives us very lucid accounts of both the events at the tower of joy, and the circumstances of Lyanna's death. The kingsguard are conspicuously absent from the memories of Lyanna, and Lyanna is conspicuously absent from the memories of the kingsguard.
Very true,its so conspicuous the lack of cohesiveness in Ned's waking moments.I have no doubt that there is a connection.Like i said that scene in Ned's dream straight out of freaking anime and that tells me the clash of swords,Lyanna screaming then rose across a blood streaked sky tells me "she" was in a battle and she got slashed.
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes"--Sherlock Holmes"
I actually think this is plausible,though i think it will be her visage yes.
I think we may hints of Ghost having Lyanna's face already. I strongly agree with kingmonkey on one element of Jon, his is the face of Winterfell. I go a step further and argue that Ghost has the face of Winterfell's heart tree, and that that face is Lyanna's... in the dreamtime world, at least:
Aunt-Lyanna looking at Bran A Game of Thrones - Bran III He saw Winterfell as the eagles see it, the tall towers looking squat and stubby from above, the castle walls just lines in the dirt. He saw Maester Luwin on his balcony, studying the sky through a polished bronze tube and frowning as he made notes in a book. He saw his brother Robb, taller and stronger than he remembered him, practicing swordplay in the yard with real steel in his hand. He saw Hodor, the simple giant from the stables, carrying an anvil to Mikken's forge, hefting it onto his shoulder as easily as another man might heft a bale of hay. At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly.
Mother-Lyanna cock-blocking Jon A Storm of Swords - Jon VI When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father's face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn't, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night's Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not. "You know nothing, Jon Snow," she whispered, her skin dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled thick and red.
Very true,its so conspicuous the lack of cohesiveness in Ned's waking moments.I have no doubt that there is a connection.Like i said that scene in Ned's dream straight out of freaking anime and that tells me the clash of swords,Lyanna screaming then rose across a blood streaked sky tells me "she" was in a battle and she got slashed.
Are you suggesting that Lyanna, like the mother wolf in Bran I, was impaled?
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
A few more similarities regarding the above, wolfmaid7 .
Eyes that weep blood = Weirwood Face:
A Game of Thrones - Eddard XIII "Promise me, Ned," Lyanna's statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.
Some strong "ice and fire" imagery above, imo. No need for dragons, blood is fire.
Below, I think Lyanna is dressed like a weirwood: white bark, covered in sap:
A Clash of Kings - Theon V But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna.
I should write all my Lyanna in the Weirnet stuff into an actual OP someday.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
BTW, voice , kingmonkey , one or both of you mentioned a SSM about there being two survivors at ToJ (I can't seem to find where I saw it) ... do you have a link for that?
You'll find a good breakdown of the information and misinformation here.
Short version, we don't have the actual text of the q & a, but the questioner has confirmed she specified "how many men" because she was trying to get a hint that Dayne may have survived.
Either there were more people present than Ned named, more people arrived, or, Lyanna's body was not at the tower of joy.
I rule none of them out. But as you well know, one of these options has been discussed far more than the other, and that has been to the detriment of the debate in my opinion.
I'll throw in another possibility: that we're all working on a red herring, and the "they" so many theories are based on is a continuity error. It comes very early in the book, and it's perfectly feasible that GRRM wrote that before he'd come up with the final story of what happened there. Those early chapters include a number of oddities.
I do agree with you that the orthodox reading has often stifled debate.
Not saying it is random, only that it is a superlative... not a proper name.
Yet the text actually disagrees with you (and its own punctuation): "It was said that Rhaegar had named that place the tower of joy..." (italics mine). Also, were it a superlative, it should be "...named that place a tower of joy". I think we have to accept that the grammar here is indecisive.
Let me put a different spin on this question, because this is something as you know I consider a major clue here: do you believe the name/description that GRRM chose, "the tower of joy" draws inspiration from the Joyeuse Garde, or do you think that's coincidence?
Either there were more people present than Ned named, more people arrived, or, Lyanna's body was not at the tower of joy.
I rule none of them out. But as you well know, one of these options has been discussed far more than the other, and that has been to the detriment of the debate in my opinion.
I'll throw in another possibility: that we're all working on a red herring, and the "they" so many theories are based on is a continuity error. It comes very early in the book, and it's perfectly feasible that GRRM wrote that before he'd come up with the final story of what happened there. Those early chapters include a number of oddities.
I do agree with you that the orthodox reading has often stifled debate.
Not saying it is random, only that it is a superlative... not a proper name.
Yet the text actually disagrees with you (and its own punctuation): "It was said that Rhaegar had named that place the tower of joy..." (italics mine). Also, were it a superlative, it should be "...named that place a tower of joy". I think we have to accept that the grammar here is indecisive.
Let me put a different spin on this question, because this is something as you know I consider a major clue here: do you believe the name/description that GRRM chose, "the tower of joy" draws inspiration from the Joyeuse Garde, or do you think that's coincidence?
Indeed. IIRC, there were some cool discussions regarding this over on the W a while ago...
I'll throw in another possibility: that we're all working on a red herring, and the "they" so many theories are based on is a continuity error. It comes very early in the book, and it's perfectly feasible that GRRM wrote that before he'd come up with the final story of what happened there. Those early chapters include a number of oddities.
Very possible. But once we start dismissing the text itself, we're setting a poor framework for theory... particularly if the only reason to dismiss the text is because it does not fit a given theory.
I do agree with you that the orthodox reading has often stifled debate.
Yup. Only trying to explore some new ground. It shouldn't be new, and fans shouldn't find themselves on either side of a battle line. It is a work of fiction after all. I still approach it that way and have no personal attachment to one scenario or another. Perhaps that is why I'm often puzzled by the hostility that comes when people reexamine the text critically and find points of error or omission.
Once we mentally-canonize assumptions and speculation, we build upon them. Some of the building has been very productive and very interesting. Some of it has become rather dogmatic, and that's too bad. Once we put the blinders on, and choose to ignore/suppress other impressions, we're defeating the very purpose of group dialogue.
Yet the text actually disagrees with you (and its own punctuation): "It was said that Rhaegar had named that place the tower of joy..." (italics mine). Also, were it a superlative, it should be "...named that place a tower of joy". I think we have to accept that the grammar here is indecisive.
The grammar is ambiguous, but the capitalization really is not. I have many shoes. Some of my shoes are destined for the beach. Some are downright presidential. One pair, seems to attract debris of all sorts. They are old shoes, but are by far the most comfortable. I have done a lot of cool things in those shoes. They have chased children and dogs. They been to countless sporting events and concerts, often proving to be good luck. And yes, they are shoes of joy.
I've said that, just now... lol. Thus, hearsayers can factually state:
It was said that Voice had named that pair the shoes of joy.
They are actually an old pair of Jordans. Yes, they are awesome. But "awesome" is not their name.
Let me put a different spin on this question, because this is something as you know I consider a major clue here: do you believe the name/description that GRRM chose, "the tower of joy" draws inspiration from the Joyeuse Garde, or do you think that's coincidence?
A man named Arthur with a sword of heroes, titled as guard, dying at a place associated with joy?
Complete coincidence.
LOL
Kidding of course. I quite like the symbolism. But it is difficult to discern an homage from a clue of plot significance in this regard. Our usurper of tropes uses his protagonist to literally deconstruct the place.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
BTW, voice , kingmonkey , one or both of you mentioned a SSM about there being two survivors at ToJ (I can't seem to find where I saw it) ... do you have a link for that?
You'll find a good breakdown of the information and misinformation here.
Short version, we don't have the actual text of the q & a, but the questioner has confirmed she specified "how many men" because she was trying to get a hint that Dayne may have survived.
Thanks!
This at least makes it unlikely that Martin had a random assortment of servants in mind when thinking about the tower - that'd be likely to include some males, so the fact that he was so clear about there being no men apart from the combatants suggests that he knows exactly who was there at the tower off the top of his head (and that still might include Lyanna, Jon, or Wylla). Some other possibilites are that he knows that only female servants (and perhaps boys under 16) were there, or that he doesn't count servants as people; both seem unlikely.
I replied earlier using my phone so i didn't have time to go into detail about what i mean.To me the only pattern is that they by nature are old dreams,we can make the tempos sound the same but fundamentally they are different.I mentioned this before....There is no tonal or phrasal ambiguity in V6's and Cersie's dream that can be classified as temporal and locational.
There is a tone to language a tone to ambiguity that let's the reader know something is off or there's a mystery.
In Cersie's old dream the ambiguity is on the prophecy itself particularly whoever "the little brother" is.Its not on the tent and its not on Maggie the Frog.In V6's old dream no ambiguity of time or place...No ambiguity at all as that was explained by V6 actually letting us know how his family knew he was a Skinchanger.We get temporal hints with V6 telling us how old he was in relation to his brother and how old his brother was when he passed.
Unlike Cersie and V6's old dreams the elements of Ned's dream have ambiguity in relation to each other. We know when the elements of Cersie's dream occured and their relation to each other the same with V6.No amibiguity of time and place in either.
Well, that's kind of how hints work - you introduce ambiguity, then you gradually add stuff without the ambiguity. Now, it's possible that the purpose of these 'clues' is actually to maintain ambiguity, rather than lessen it (=misdirection), or even that they are there for some entirely different reason (what would that be, though?), but to say that the parallel dreams can't be clues pointing towards the truth because they lack the locational/temporal ambiguity is a very odd argument, to say the least.
Yup again. Ned gives us very lucid accounts of both the events at the tower of joy, and the circumstances of Lyanna's death. The kingsguard are conspicuously absent from the memories of Lyanna, and Lyanna is conspicuously absent from the memories of the kingsguard.
Yes. That, and the apparent practical issues point towards these two being at different places. OTOH there's a bunch of parallels pointing towards the two being at the same place. The two main possibilites are that the parallels are there to divert the attention from the practical issues, or that the parallels tell us that however odd the details may seem, it's all supposed to make sense at the ToJ. I'm not sure which one it is (I keep changing my mind about which one I'm leaning towards), but the latter is a strong possibility.
Very possible. But once we start dismissing the text itself, we're setting a poor framework for theory... particularly if the only reason to dismiss the text is because it does not fit a given theory.
Oh certainly. It's what we've got, so it's what our theories should try to work with. However if it turns out that there was nobody else there, I won't be hugely surprised. My point here was simply to point out that we're dangling a lot of framework on a single word, particularly given the words occurs very early on in the text. The first draft of those early chapters was written before much of the detail had been determined.
It shouldn't be new, and fans shouldn't find themselves on either side of a battle line. It is a work of fiction after all. I still approach it that way and have no personal attachment to one scenario or another. Perhaps that is why I'm often puzzled by the hostility that comes when people reexamine the text critically and find points of error or omission.
Some people seem to develop a sense of team loyalty about it, and thus view anyone doubting their view as a personal challenge. It's all very odd. Even as a believer in RLJ I find the R+L=J threads in The Other Place to be a cesspit at times.
This coming Sunday, there's a pretty high likelihood that the show will have a big ToJ reveal. While the details may not be exactly the same, if the show reveals Arthur is Jon's dad, I'll assume that's almost certainly how it'll go down in the books. If it reveals Rhaegar, I will consider RLJ virtually proven. Whatever is revealed, some people will argue that the show and the books will be different. Of course that's possible. However I'll bet right now that if RLJ is revealed, that view will mostly be held by people who currently don't believe in RLJ, while if RLJ is denied it will be mostly RLJ supporters who make the claim the books will be different.
One pair, seems to attract debris of all sorts. They are old shoes, but are by far the most comfortable. I have done a lot of cool things in those shoes. They have chased children and dogs. They been to countless sporting events and concerts, often proving to be good luck. And yes, they are shoes of joy.
I've said that, just now... lol. Thus, hearsayers can factually state:
It was said that Voice had named that pair the shoes of joy.
They are actually an old pair of Jordans. Yes, they are awesome. But "awesome" is not their name.
True, but not true that you had named them the shoes of joy. You would have described them as the shoes of joy. If you name an object, you are giving it a name, and names should be capitalised. It may be that GRRM is using "named" hyperbolically, of course. I'm not sure the grammatical analysis is worth making thought. Whether Rhaegar named or described the tower thus, he still must have had a reason to do so. You wouldn't call your shoes awesome unless you liked them.
Let me put a different spin on this question, because this is something as you know I consider a major clue here: do you believe the name/description that GRRM chose, "the tower of joy" draws inspiration from the Joyeuse Garde, or do you think that's coincidence?
A man named Arthur with a sword of heroes, titled as guard, dying at a place associated with joy?
Complete coincidence.
LOL
Kidding of course. I quite like the symbolism. But it is difficult to discern an homage from a clue of plot significance in this regard. Our usurper of tropes uses his protagonist to literally deconstruct the place.
The Arthurian story has the summer prince kidnapping the winter maiden and taking her to a tower which in a later form of the legend is named as the Joyous Tower. GRRMs story has a summer prince kidnapping a winter maiden and it has a tower of joy where the prince of summer's companions are certainly found. Of course GRRM doesn't have to (and isn't) following every detail -- but I think it's a pretty strong reason to assume that Lyanna was indeed at the tower, just as Ned's dream implies.
Well, that's kind of how hints work - you introduce ambiguity, then you gradually add stuff without the ambiguity. Now, it's possible that the purpose of these 'clues' is actually to maintain ambiguity, rather than lessen it (=misdirection), or even that they are there for some entirely different reason (what would that be, though?), but to say that the parallel dreams can't be clues pointing towards the truth because they lack the locational/temporal ambiguity is a very odd argument, to say the least.
I 100% agree with your first sentence,but suprise at your conclusion.I mention upthread the importance of recognizing "where" the ambiguity is and asking why it may be there.The crux of misdirection is somene in this case GRRM allowing us the readers to make assumptions about what we are reading.The dream may count as such because most readers don't see the info within that scope.If the intent by the author was to hide that Lyanna's death took place at that moment then he failed miserably.A larger part of this debate is if the clues that myself and others see as clues,are really clues.
I also disagree with you on the purpose of clues being to maintain ambiguity,clues inform us something is off and serve as breadcrumbs to answer why that thing is off.
I think i can say that the parallel dreams aren't clues to what went down at the toj.There's nothing linking them except the tempo of how they were written which i conclude is a stylistic way of GRRM indicating a mystery or information in said dream that's important.
For Cersie we are left with who this "Volonquor" is. For V6 it was for me it was that whole reveal about him using the dogs to kill his brother and what that could mean when it came to Skinchanging.
For Ned's dream it was where the phrasal clues told us the ambiguity was...which is where and when.
So i'm not saying V6 dream and Cersie's dream don't hold mysteries because they do.I'm saying there only conntection to each other is the style used to inform us that there is a mystery.Hence me saying i see no connection,that was the connection or lack thereof that i spoke of.
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes"--Sherlock Holmes"