Post by shymaid on May 26, 2018 6:20:23 GMT
Again we have a chapter full of clues to the parents of the "royal" children, but I'll skip that in these posts.
(I track it to get a template for how Martin gives his clues, and so how he could hide the other children. Maybe I'll post a long one with all the clues when we get to the reveal.)
We also meet Gendry, and his father is revealed shortly after Ned meeting him:
- he's tall and muscular, with shaggy black hair and blue eyes. He also has the Baratheon jaw, but we're given no description of that here.
- he's bull headed and very stubborn, like Robert.
- he speaks his own mind, no matter who he talks to. Not a push-over.
Ned sees easily that he's a Baratheon and shows us why Robert is the only option for a father. Renly is too young, Stannis not the type to father a bastard - much and more is said of his view on loose women/whores, and as Gendry's mother was lowborn the chances are minute that Stannis was involved. My own note there is that unless the woman was from Storm's End, Gendry's age prevent Stannis from fathering Gendry due to the siege. So his conclution is that Robert is the father, and in addition that might be the only reason someone was going to lengths to keep Gendry safe and hidden after his mother died.
I do find it interesting that Ned describes Gendry's eyes like "blue as ice", which takes my mind to the North. But I don't see how Gendry's mother could be from the north, or her being Lyanna.
The master called over a tall lad about Robb's age, his arms and chest corded with muscle.
In my mind, this ties Gendry's age close to that of Robb's, and so would've been concieved around the Battle of the Bells. Perhaps even in "The Peach"? His mother could've moved after the distruction of the battle. While one could argue that Martin only uses Robb here due to lenght, I don't see "and Jon" being that much longer and so think it's meant to show something about Gendry's age; but also Jon's! To me this reads like a hint of Jon being older than Robb.
And speaking of Jon, here we see Ned using silence to make Tobho Mott speak when he really wants to stay quiet. We just saw Jon using the same tactic with Sam, but in a less menacing way where Sam was allowed to speak when he was ready.
I also see some hints to the possibility of Renly being Robert's bastard.
Yet knowing all that, what had he learned? The king had other baseborn children scattered throughout the Seven Kingdoms. He had openly acknowledged one of his bastards, a boy of Bran's age whose mother was highborn. The lad was being fostered by Lord Renly's castellan at Storm's End.
Ned remembered Robert's first child as well, a daughter born in the Vale when Robert was scarcely more than a boy himself. A sweet little girl; the young lord of Storm's End had doted on her. He used to make daily visits to play with the babe, long after he had lost interest in the mother. Ned was often dragged along for company, whether he willed it or not. The girl would be seventeen or eighteen now, he realized; older than Robert had been when he fathered her. A strange thought.
Ned remembered Robert's first child as well, a daughter born in the Vale when Robert was scarcely more than a boy himself. A sweet little girl; the young lord of Storm's End had doted on her. He used to make daily visits to play with the babe, long after he had lost interest in the mother. Ned was often dragged along for company, whether he willed it or not. The girl would be seventeen or eighteen now, he realized; older than Robert had been when he fathered her. A strange thought.
Here we see that Robert started fathering bastards at a young age, "scarcely more than a boy himself". As Robert might very well have debuted earlier, I don't really see a problem with him having an even older bastard.
We also see that if the mother is highborn, he takes responsibility and claims that one. As that might be harder with Renly, his parents might have taken the responsibility of that child (and Robert's disgrace at such an early age) and claimed it for their own.
Also that child is being raised at Storm's End. It would be ironic if a later bastard was brought up in the household of his first bastard. Also tied to Storm's End, if this is the case, Robert gave the seat to his firstborn son; a thought I really like.
Another clue might be in Renly showing Ned the portrait of what he hopes is "a young Lyanna". With him being called a young Robert and Margaery a young Lyanna takes my mind to them being of the next generation.
Speaking of that portrait, let's look at that again.
A few days past, he had taken Ned aside to show him an exquisite rose gold locklet. Inside was a miniature painted in the vivid Myrish style, of a lovely young girl with doe's eyes and a cascade of soft brown hair. Renly had seemed anxious to know if the girl reminded him of anyone, and when Ned had no answer but a shrug, he had seemed disappointed. The maid was Loras Tyrell's sister Margaery, he'd confessed, but there were those who said she looked like Lyanna. "No," Ned had told him, bemused. Could it be that Lord Renly, who looked so like a young Robert, had conceived a passion for a girl he fancied to be a young Lyanna? That struck him as more than passing queer.
Personally I distinguish between passion and love. While love might include a passion for that person, passion doesn't have to include love. Taking a look at definitions, both love and sexual desire is mentioned, but one is not dependent on the other. Usually it's seen as more intense than lust, though.
I for one has questioned that Robert ever truly loved Lyanna, and after her death, I think he's put a glorified memory on a pedestal. But if Ned is right here with his use of passion (and that Robert felt the same back in the day when she was still alive), it indicates something stronger than just lust. Something that defines his current whoring.
But another thing that passion intails, is the lack of reason. Something uncontrolable that might move the person into action that could prove a mistake later. (It could be tied to several emotions beside love or sexual desire, just to make that clear.)
We also get Gendry's words on Stannis:
«The bald one? No, not him. He never said a word, just glared at me, like I was some raper who done for his daughter.»
Stannis and Robert is nothing alike, and is made a huge point of in this chapter; so I don't think Stannis is a stand-in for Robert here. But with the accusation of Rhaegar raping Lyanna, maybe I shouldn't dismiss it too soon.
However, Gendry himself is a product of Robert's passionate nature, so it's easier to see him as a potential stand-in here. If so, is this telling us that Robert might have gotten a little too amorous with Lyanna? Did he try or manage to rape her? Or another woman during the "Summer Tourney of Love", causing a rift between him and Lyanna and so playing into what happened to her a bit later?