Hmmm, interesting that Jon is symbolized by both black AND white... so you're saying that if only there were SOMEBODY we could tie to Jon in a fatherly manner, that might have once served as both a white cloak and a black cloak, maybe even streaked (or sewn) with some red thrown in for good measure (in like a "blood is the seal of our devotion" type of way or something), then this all might make sense?
Haha! I have no idea where on Planetos we could ever find anyone like that! It's only a Song of Ice (white) and Fire (red) in a gathering dark (black) after all!
I think this speaks to how good a writer GRRM is. He intentionally told us several stories, and they all conflict if Jon is the result of them:
1. Jon is Bran's bastard brother, and calls Eddard Stark "father" 2. Rhaegar died for the woman he loved, and we are later told that woman was Lyanna. 3. Lyanna was like Arya: Arya beats boys up and does not swoon for princes. 4. Jon's milkbrother is the Lord of Starfall, and shares Ned's nickname.
5. Lyanna wanted to come home to rest beside Brandon. Brandon was not shy about taking what he wanted. Lyanna and Brandon were both led to early graves by their wolfblood. Cat feels them together in her bed. Theon sees them together. Ned gave them both statues in the crypts for reasons unknown...
Then we have the fact that Ned lept to the conclusion that Jaime was the father of Cersei's children. The "black of hair" moment would surely give Ned cause to doubt Robert Baratheon was the father.... but WHY would Ned leap to the conclusion that Jaime was Cersei's lover? Why not any other blonde guy?
Unlike Robert, Ned was the kind of man who could look at a woman and not be blinded by her beauty. Ned could see the "iron underneath." And I think Cersei reminded him of Lyanna. If we look back at Lyanna's words, it is just too easy to imagine Cersei speaking them:
'That's my father's man you're kicking,'
"Robert will never keep to one bed,"
"I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale."
"Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature."
Ned isn't the sharpest detective, but if anyone is good at finding reminders of Lyanna in the world, it's him. I think he picked up on this early on and didn't really make anything of it until the Sansa-Arya fight when they reveal that Joffrey (like Jon) is 100% his mother's house.
Proud Lyanna. She did not want the man muscled like a maiden's fantasy in her bed. She was too good for him...
One more thing... Lyanna, like Arya and Cersei, was not the sort of person to beg. Yet, we hear Lyanna pleading with Ned. We all know what the one thing is in the world that would make Cersei plead.
So now imagine being Ned. Of course you're going to offer Cersei exile and safety for her children born of incest.
Last Edit: Sept 20, 2017 19:40:40 GMT by voice: Dornish keyboard
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
What interests me about this one is that we get the first description of Jon, and he's said to be "slender" and "graceful" with gray eyes almost black. I don't know that Ned is ever described as either of those, but I could be wrong. I want to go read Jon's meeting with Mance to see how Mance is described. I would imagine a swordsman like Arthur could be seen as "graceful" in an efficient killing machine sort of way. Lyanna I also imagine as slender, lithe, and graceful, and even in the context of swordfighting as we see in Bran's later vision where she's dueling Benjen, and I think Arya's water dancing is a great parallel in this regard also. I would also imagine Rhaegar to be graceful, and he probably is described as such at some point as well.
We don't get much of a physical description of either Ned or Ser Arthur to compare to Jon. We get quite a bit on Mance.
Size wise, Ned is only described by Catelyn as "shorter" than his brother Brandon. Which is vague, for both Ned and Brandon. Of course, Ned has dark hair and grey eyes like Jon, but as for body type or movement, I see no comparison in the text.
Ser Arthur is also not described. We don't get even a hair or eye color for him, and the only reference I can find to his size is from Ned's toj fever dream, where Ned recalls Ser Arthur wearing Dawn over his shoulder. Dawn is a great sword and therefore long, so it is hard to know if this makes SAD short and needing to wear his sword in a more unconventional manner (such as a young Jon does with Longclaw), or that Dawn is just really long. Or SAD thinks he looks cool with his sword over his shoulder?
There is a bit more of a description for Mance. Jon's first look at him just revealed a grey haired man playing a lute. But after Jon know's the lute player is Mance Rayder, he takes a closer look and finds Mance is "of middling height, slender, sharp-faced, with shrewd brown eyes and long brown hair that had gone mostly to grey." ASOS-Jon I. In Dance (Jon VI), when Jon battles Mance who is disguised as Rattleshirt, Mance chooses a two-handed greatsword to use against Jon, and wields it "with blinding speed". In armor rather than bones, Mance as Rattleshirt appears to Jon as "taller" and "his shoulders thicker" and "more powerful".
Graceful is never mentioned in descriptions of Ned, Arthur or Mance, but slender and brown hair are things that Mance and Jon have in common. And things that remind me of SAD are that Mance chooses a great sword and wields it well. One would imagine with the poor weapons the wildlings have, it is unusual that Mance would have such a talent with a greatsword. But he does, and the only two greatswords in our story are Ice and Dawn, I think.
I do wonder how much of this is Mance, however, and how much is Melisandre's glamour? Still, I think Mance must be a pretty damn fine warrior to be king-beyond-the-wall, because we are told the wildlings respect strength and a warrior skill. Mance had to beat several other self proclaimed wildling "kings", so Mance must be very good.
Haha! And it is an interesting connection. But white is also the color of snow, and Snow is the name give to an important bastard of house Stark, a bastard of the north!
Well Bael left a baby in his Stark maiden's belly, symbolized it with winter roses, and went back beyond the wall and proclaimed himself king, and then the son grows up, goes beyond the wall and kills the father. So Mance and Jon could be in similar positions if Mance is Arthur or Rhaegar and fathered a son on Lyanna.
I think we are missing an important detail about the Bael the Bard story, and I speculate that detail involves incest. As in either Bael the Bard was the Stark maiden's half brother, or that the Stark maiden's father was the father of the babe. Craster's story has to mean something besides him just seeming like a terrible creep!
Dany, I have wondered about the wolf image in the tent and her vision of the Red Wedding. That was odd! But I'm not sure how an affair would start between Brandon and Rhaella, so it seems like a bit of a stretch to me.
Brandon and Rhaella is a HUGE stretch, I agree, but Dany does have some Stark like qualities. She sometimes speaks with "ice" in her voice like Ned does, and she has an almost amazing connection with her silver mare from the first moment she rides her. Brandon and Lyanna were said to me amazing riders, almost centaur-like. Dany and her silver are almost skin-changer like, how she "feels" the horse and they seem know each other and learn from each other. Still, this could just be the gene that Targ's carry that makes them able to ride dragon's. Maybe the Stark's could ride dragon's, too?
I'm not sure why, but I've never really seen much Jon-Lyanna connection other than via Arya. Maybe my focus has been elsewhere, or I'm just stupid or blind.
I think it is mostly the Jon-Arya-Lyanna connection that we see it. And the "blue rose" growing from "a chink in the wall". I don't think it slaps a person in the face, but is more subtle. And it might me Lyanna calling to Jon from the crypts! I think she talks to Ned in dreams. I think voice's Weirwood Ghost theory addresses this idea pretty well. But there is also the possibility that Lyanna is not Jon's mother, and it's possible that she never had a child at all.
My problem is that I'm also reading Storm (nearly done!) and D&E these days, AND I try to look for ALL posibilities so at some point I have to let things lie.
Oh, yes, I am still struggling through my Cersei reread (I have only two chapters left) and last night I can across something that I associate with Lyanna, but I think I will save it for when we get to that chapter in the reread. I am sure it has been noted before, but I have never noticed it. We can't help but make the connections as they come to us, and then ponder on them more and more as we go, no matter how or why we are reading again!
I sit with a somewhat battered middleaged lady in my lap at the moment. She's not very big and had a run in with a fox big male the other day, poor thing!
Poor thing, hope she is better soon!
Last Edit: Sept 20, 2017 20:18:23 GMT by stdaga: spelling ... yikes!
Their father understood as well. "You want no pup for yourself, Jon?" he asked softly.
5. Lyanna wanted to come home to rest beside Brandon.
I am more on the Ned/Lyanna Starkcest idea than Brandon/Lyanna, but I do see Brandon as very possible.
One thing about Brandon and Lyanna as Jon's parents that I like, they are parents who are both dead in the beginning of the story, and so maybe Jon will be alive at the end of this story.
It mirrors the inverse to me of Jaime and Cersei, parents who are both alive at the beginning of this story, and that their three children will probably be dead by the end of this story. (so says Maggy the Frog)
I am always looking for a way for Jon to survive this story, even though the odds are quite slim!!!
One thing that detracts from Brandon and Lyanna as Jon's parents are that they both were wild wolves, and Jon doesn't really show much of that in his personality. He is more the quiet wolf, like Ned. Like Ghost!
One of the things that interests me about the Starkcest possibility for Jon's parentage is that our story starts with Jaime and Cersei, and how reviled people are by their relationship and consider their children to be abominations. However, if Jon is the person to save the world during the Long Night 2.0, and he is also a child of incest, but saves the world, how do people (the readers and the people of Westeros) cope with the idea of an "abomination" (I hate that word BTW, just using it because so many incest-doubters in the fan base use it) is the savior of the world, and maybe saved the world because of the incest in his blood line! I think that would be a genius angle!
It is Jaime and Cersei's sibling incest that makes me think the key to Jon's parentage is sibling incest. However, I can't forget Craster in this story, with his daughter-wives, but I wonder if his early wives were actually sister-wives, too!
kinglittlefinger , it's a terrible black hole, and once you fall down it, it's hard to escape!
Their father understood as well. "You want no pup for yourself, Jon?" he asked softly.
Post by kinglittlefinger on Sept 20, 2017 20:26:51 GMT
stdaga I can't multi-quote on mobile so this won't be as formatted as I like. There are definitely more greatswords than those two, but I think those may be the only two worthy of a name. That might be what you meant. I can't think of any Valyrian steel ones beside Ice off the top of my head.
Definitely a LOT of stuff that I picked up on in the Jon/Mance chapter, I'll tag you in the post when I write it up in another thread.
I think you might be on to something RE: the Bael story and purpose of Craster's incest. I refuse to believe it makes sense with the timeline for BrLJ to be plausible but I guess I'm coming around to the symbolism and contextual clue side some.
I think this speaks to how good a writer GRRM is. He intentionally told us several stories, and they all conflict if Jon is the result of them:
1. Jon is Bran's bastard brother, and calls Eddard Stark "father" 2. Rhaegar died for the woman he loved, and we are later told that woman was Lyanna. 3. Lyanna was like Arya: Arya beats boys up and does not swoon for princes. 4. Jon's milkbrother is the Lord of Starfall, and shares Ned's nickname.
5. Lyanna wanted to come home to rest beside Brandon. Brandon was not shy about taking what he wanted. Lyanna and Brandon were both led to early graves by their wolfblood. Cat feels them together in her bed. Theon sees them together. Ned gave them both statues in the crypts for reasons unknown...
Then we have the fact that Ned lept to the conclusion that Jaime was the father of Cersei's children. The "black of hair" moment would surely give Ned cause to doubt Robert Baratheon was the father.... but WHY would Ned leap to the conclusion that Jaime was Cersei's lover? Why not any other blonde guy?
Unlike Robert, Ned was the kind of man who could look at a woman and not be blinded by her beauty. Ned could see the "iron underneath." And I think Cersei reminded him of Lyanna. If we look back at Lyanna's words, it is just too easy to imagine Cersei speaking them:
'That's my father's man you're kicking,'
"Robert will never keep to one bed,"
"I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale."
"Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature."
Ned isn't the sharpest detective, but if anyone is good at finding reminders of Lyanna in the world, it's him. I think he picked up on this early on and didn't really make anything of it until the Sansa-Arya fight when they reveal that Joffrey (like Jon) is 100% his mother's house.
Proud Lyanna. She did not want the man muscled like a maiden's fantasy in her bed. She was too good for him...
One more thing... Lyanna, like Arya and Cersei, was not the sort of person to beg. Yet, we hear Lyanna pleading with Ned. We all know what the one thing is in the world that would make Cersei plead.
So now imagine being Ned. Of course you're going to offer Cersei exile and safety for her children born of incest.
And then after that fateful meeting with Cersei is when Ned has his dream of Lyanna in the Winterfell crypts, crying bloody tears, "Promise me, Ned", while the stone Kings of Winter look on, and their stone direwolves snarl at Ned.
Ned's guilt about whatever he promised Lyanna is directly tied in to Winterfell and to Winterfell's line of Kings. In other words, it ain't dragons that are pissed at Ned.
Post by freyfamilyreunion on Sept 20, 2017 20:37:58 GMT
As for the Bael story, another poster, in another board, Some Pig No Doubt, has a really wicked take on the Bael story. I can't do it justice without cutting and pasting. But needless to say, she equates the winter rose with the Stark daughter's maidenhead, and that it was plucked before it was given to Bael.
In other words, if the Starks have a magical bloodline that is only passed on from a paternal line, what does a Stark Lord do if he feels that it is his duty to pass this paternal bloodline on, and he only has a daughter?
Haha! And it is an interesting connection. But white is also the color of snow, and Snow is the name give to an important bastard of house Stark, a bastard of the north!
I think we are missing an important detail about the Bael the Bard story, and I speculate that detail involves incest. As in either Bael the Bard was the Stark maiden's half brother, or that the Stark maiden's father was the father of the babe. Craster's story has to mean something besides him just seeming like a terrible creep!
Brandon and Rhaella is a HUGE stretch, I agree, but Dany does have some Stark like qualities. She sometimes speaks with "ice" in her voice like Ned does, and she has an almost amazing connection with her silver mare from the first moment she rides her. Brandon and Lyanna were said to me amazing riders, almost centaur-like. Dany and her silver are almost skin-changer like, how she "feels" the horse and they seem know each other and learn from each other. Still, this could just be the gene that Targ's carry that makes them able to ride dragon's. Maybe the Stark's could ride dragon's, too?
R+L=D? I'm not on board with Lyanna being the mother of both Dany and Jon, as the age difference is too small. Gawd, already I'm starting to dread going further in the books, as the babygate gets bigger! In Bran the focus is naturally on Jon, but soon the plot will thicken...
I certainly think Winterfell is Jon's destiny, but is it his legal right? It that what Robb's will did for Jon, if Robb did indeed make Jon his heir?
Could be! At this time I lay any big thoughts on Jon being the rightfull heir somewhat to the side. But I do think his constant mantra of not being a Stark is a warning bell.
I think it is mostly the Jon-Arya-Lyanna connection that we see it. And the "blue rose" growing from "a chink in the wall". I don't think it slaps a person in the face, but is more subtle. And it might me Lyanna calling to Jon from the crypts! I think she talks to Ned in dreams. I think Voice's Weirwood Ghost theory addresses this idea pretty well. But there is also the possibility that Lyanna is not Jon's mother, and it's possible that she never had a child at all.
And this is why I don't feel it strongly, and remain open to another mother for him. The Jon-Arya-Lyanna could mean something or nothing. And it's just a blue flower growing from that chink in the wall, the rose part is easy to add after connecting it to Lyanna due to the color and the wall. I find the part just before that most interesting: A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. Difficult to withstand the natural connection my mind draws from that one! I've read the Weirwood Ghost, interesting but I'm not convinced yet. Mind also that I try to keep my mind as open as possible untill I get some more reads under my belt! Ah, if I just could read them unsullied! Alas I bought them because of different theories; before I didn't really see the point as it would all be in the show... Now I hope it's all fan fiction!
Oh, yes, I am still struggling through my Cersei reread (I have only two chapters left) and last night I can across something that I associate with Lyanna, but I think I will save it for when we get to that chapter in the reread. I am sure it has been noted before, but I have never noticed it. We can't help but make the connections as they come to us, and then ponder on them more and more as we go, no matter how or why we are reading again!
Good luck! Sometimes a break is needed! I've put off my Catelyn reread as I dread those chapters, the early ones in particular. So I'll try to do that as well as we read now, and maybe get to that Catelyn-thread I've been thinking of. Already I've chosen to hold my tounge of some suspitions! Our minds work as they will sometimes! For now I can't unsee the potential parallells with Ned at the end of RR in Bran I, so I think I'll have to go back after a few chapters and look again. An amazing story to have so many layers! And it's been said before: I think Martin is quite baffled over what people can see in the text!
Just a few scratches and a bruise or two I think. The confrontation was in a place with only one exit, so she was more scared than she'd been before. But she has no trouble going out, so all will be well!
R+L=D? I'm not on board with Lyanna being the mother of both Dany and Jon, as the age difference is too small. Gawd, already I'm starting to dread going further in the books, as the babygate gets bigger! In Bran the focus is naturally on Jon, but soon the plot will thicken...
I don't think that Lyanna is the mother to both Jon and Dany, but one or the other. Or maybe neither!
It's just that Dany does have some things in her background that hint at some Stark or north like background for her. I am not sure it's not just there to distract us. It certainly distracts me!
As for the Bael story, another poster, in another board, Some Pig No Doubt, has a really wicked take on the Bael story. I can't do it justice without cutting and pasting. But needless to say, she equates the winter rose with the Stark daughter's maidenhead, and that it was plucked before it was given to Bael.
Is this over at the House of Black and White? I creep about over there too, but haven't posted much. It seems familiar. Maybe I need to refresh my memory. It was a Starkcest search that lead me over there, whenever it was that I joined.
And this is why I don't feel it strongly, and remain open to another mother for him. The Jon-Arya-Lyanna could mean something or nothing. And it's just a blue flower growing from that chink in the wall, the rose part is easy to add after connecting it to Lyanna due to the color and the wall.
Well, I have come to view the blue rose as a symbol of incest in the story, and I find it hard to dissuade myself from that now. Blue roses and the Bael tale, the blue rose hints at Harrenhal, blue roses with hidden thorns in Lyanna's hands, the blue rose ties to Jon as the child of that incest.
I might not be that at all, but it's where my vision is focused these days. It might actually be a red herring to distract us from other parentage options.
Their father understood as well. "You want no pup for yourself, Jon?" he asked softly.
I mean unless Starkcest is the truth here, all of these children would only be half-Stark by blood. And Rickon's wolf was black, which also doesn't fit the Stark sigil wolf color. I do think the color's of the wolfs are important. Four grey with golden eyes, one black with green eyes, one white with red eyes- it's a message, if not from the old gods, then certainly from GRRM.
It's true, you're right, the rest are all half-Starks, half-Tullys by blood, but I suppose the rest are legitimate Starks, "worthy" of the seal that adorns the House flags (which is Jon's point in order to save the pups) and he's probably a legitimate something else. In the end though Jon is a Stark in everything that counts really (character, upbringing, even blood thought not through Ned in my opinion) which is why the Direwolf still applies IMO. The White color just sets him apart. It would be interesting to know why Martin chose white. If it turns out it's because he's truly the next Sword of the Morning instead of a LC of the Night's Watch I'll piss myself! Morning / Night, White/ Black. He sure likes to play with his opposites.
The story also tells us that with the children of the forest, sometimes a very strong greenseer was born with red or green eyes, which makes Jon and Rickon and their direwolves seem very important.
Interseting, I forgot half of this stuff.
“Don’t fight in the North, or the South. Fight every battle everywhere. Always, in your mind.”
As for the Bael story, another poster, in another board, Some Pig No Doubt, has a really wicked take on the Bael story. I can't do it justice without cutting and pasting. But needless to say, she equates the winter rose with the Stark daughter's maidenhead, and that it was plucked before it was given to Bael.
In other words, if the Starks have a magical bloodline that is only passed on from a paternal line, what does a Stark Lord do if he feels that it is his duty to pass this paternal bloodline on, and he only has a daughter?
Is this over at the House of Black and White? I creep about over there too, but haven't posted much. It seems familiar. Maybe I need to refresh my memory. It was a Starkcest search that lead me over there, whenever it was that I joined.
I just finished reading a theory over at tHoBW that I think you might be talking about, and I had never seen it before. It is fairly new and I haven't been over there for months, I would guess, but elements are familiar, so I must have stumbled across some of those ideas in discussion in the past.
Last time I was over there, it was actually a search of my own quote from Westeros that had been referenced while talking about Ashara, Lyanna, and the Fisherman's Daughter and my thoughts on the The Sloe-Eyed Maid and The Merry Midwife, which was both rather flattering and surreal. The House of Black and White has some edgy idea's, and some of it would be shamed right out of the Westeros boards. I love outside-the-box discussion like that! Anyway, the theory is pretty enticing as an idea. I swear, once you get past the idea of incest in the story, it is really rather compelling.
I have never bought into the idea of Rickard as Jon's father at high odds, as I was focused on a sibling incest, but this theory really parallel's the Bael Tale and Lyanna's tale pretty nicely. I just read the initial post and not any of the discussion yet, but I have put it on my browser list. Thanks freyfamilyreunion for the point in that direction.
Their father understood as well. "You want no pup for yourself, Jon?" he asked softly.
My interpretation was always that being an albino direwolf means he's only half Stark.
Wolf = Stark White = Kingsguard
*dances uncontrollably*
:rofl I just posted something close to this in response to stdaga and I hadn't seen yours. I went with white - sword of the morning/ Dawn, because black - nights' watch. Close enough though. You keep dancing like that, you'll infect half the posters with this!
Never mind. They all have the bug to some degree
“Don’t fight in the North, or the South. Fight every battle everywhere. Always, in your mind.”
My interpretation was always that being an albino direwolf means he's only half Stark. The Stark sigil was always a grey direwolf and while the rest of the pups are not all grey, albino is definitely a stark difference to the rest.
It certainly suggests a strong difference. But rather than be a signal that Jon is only half-a-Stark, I think it means quite the opposite. Jon isn't an average looking Stark. His features are all uber-Stark.
Not Uber-Stark, surely! Do we even know what Uber-Stark is? I mean long face, brown hair and grey eyes? Doesn't he have a grey that's almost BLACK. That's not Uber you know?!