The house with the reed door and the lemon tree
Jan 26, 2019 0:03:12 GMT
voice, sagenadia, and 4 more like this
Post by nightsqueen on Jan 26, 2019 0:03:12 GMT
Hi everyone! I'm new here, I came by the kindly suggestion of one user and thought I could present a little theory I have and see if you like it. (Hopefully)
This “theory” only works if R+L=D and B+A=J, which honestly, I never believed it could make a lot of sense until I started to re-read AGoT looking for some plausible and logical explanation of what’s going on in the north.
So, if you think that there’s no way this could be true, then you might as well stop reading now and move on, but I think this is plausible and hopefully, you will also.
When Robert came to visit Ned, they went to the Crypts and Robert says this about Lyanna (and her dead body):
"She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean."
Now, we know Ned then tells him that this is where she belongs, but the truth is, the more you think about it the less it makes sense. At this point, Ned had at least one baby to hide before everyone knew said baby was a “dragonspawn”, not to mention he needed someone to fed the baby, so at least a wet-nurse (or another mother) was involved, he had five northerners to bury and if his dream of the Tower can be believed, three kingsguards; that makes 8 dead bodies plus Lyanna’s.
And she was not only dead but covered in blood and clearly with signs of being pregnant and giving birth. A woman that just gave birth still has a belly that is not easy to hide, not to mention that once the baby is born, the breasts are full of milk.
So, if he wanted to keep the whole thing secret is reasonable to think that he should involve the fewer people possible.
So the only way that Lyanna’s body could make it back to Winterfell is either if he carried the dead body around or if someone cleaned up the body so he could travel with the bones. Again, the logistics of cleaning a dead body are messy, and any person who saw the body would knew she was pregnant and had a child, so why would Ned trust that said person would keep quiet and not tell? Why would he risk that much for a bag of bones?
Even if the Daynes would help him to conceal the whole thing, there’s still a considerable distance from the Tower to Starfall. And again, it would involve more people than necessary.
That makes the idea of just bury Lyanna there much more reasonable.
So say she is buried on a hill in Dorne, under a fruit tree, a lemon tree. Why would it matter?
Because that would make Dany’s dream of the red door and the lemon tree mean something else. Those dreams wouldn’t be about a childhood that probably she never had, but her “crypt dreams”
All the Stark kids, and specially Jon, dream of the Crypts. In Jon dreams the place is dark (as it is in reality) and what awaits him is also dark because in the crypts the Starks “stares at eternal darkness”; but if Lyanna is not there, that’s not what she’s staring at, she is “staring” at a lemon tree in the red mountains of Dorne and that’s what Danny sees in her dreams, the house with the red door and the lemon tree is the Tower of Joy, she might think the door is red but it could be that it seems red because of the red mountains behind (part of the tower was used to bury the bodies), and Dany thinks that’s in Braavos because maybe it was there were she started to dream about it.
Of course unlike Jon, whose dreams are terrifying because finding out that Ned is not his father would be a terrifying thing for him, for Dany learning that she’s Rhaegar’s and Lyanna’s child would be great, even if it means she’s a bastard.
As for Jon, I’m starting to think that it makes much more sense that not only he’s Brandon’s son and not Ned’s, but that he’s also a trueborn son. I’ll just name a few, the more meaningful ones:
1. Jon looks like Brandon and he acts like him.
Brandon had the grey eyes of the Starks, and was hot-blooded what his father called “wolf-blood”. When you compare what we know about him and how he behaves, Jon is exactly like him, not like Ned.
Here are a couple of things:
• Brandon spent a time in Barrowtown, there he had a “thing” with Barbrey, but he knew his duty was elsewhere. Just like Jon with Ygritte.
• Brandon might have married Cat, but maybe he was already married; Jon might have married Ygritte, but he was already married with the Watch.
• At Harrenhal Brandon had to be restrained when Rhaegar crowned Lyanna because he thought it was an insult to her honor. Just like Jon had to be restrained when Thorne called Ned a traitor
• Brandon went straight to his dead when Lyanna was abducted; Jon went straight to his when “Arya” was abducted from Winterfell.
2. It would better explain lots of Ned’s reactions
There’s no doubt that Ned loved Lyanna, and maybe the pain over her dead is what doesn’t let him speak about her. But for Brandon, he feels a different kind of pain.
"Brandon. Yes. Brandon would know what to do. He always did. It was all meant for Brandon. You, Winterfell, everything.”
Truth is, there’s enough evidence in the text that proves that Cat was still in love with Brandon, even when the guy had been dead for a very long time, and Ned knew it. She even thinks that Brandon was better looking.
There’s no evidence that Ned loved Ashara, but maybe he liked her, and Brandon had her, so Ned could possibly think that it was all for Brandon: Cat, Winterfell, Ashara. He’s resentful towards his brother.
It would also explain why he feels ashamed when he thinks of Jon:
“The thought of Jon filled Ned with a sense of shame, and a sorrow too deep for words”
If Jon is Lyanna’s why would Ned be ashamed? He lied to protect the kid, and there’s honor in that lie, no reason to be ashamed. But if the lie is not honorable, then things change.
3. It would make Robb’s marriage even more meaningful
Robb married the Westerling girl because of his father’s alleged actions. He doesn’t want to father a bastard with one woman and marry another. We know Jon is not Ned’s son, and that makes the poor kid’s decision awful enough, but if Ned’s decision of posing Jon as a bastard was not an honorable thing to do, but a convenient thing to do, then, Robbs’s fate is worse.
4. It would better explain why Ned never told Cat
As I already mentioned, Cat loved Brandon, she was still in love with him after all these years, so if Jon is Brandon’s, Ned might wanted to spare her from the pain that not only Brandon didn’t loved her back, but the fact she had to raise the son that the guy had with another woman.
It would also explain why he forbids her to speak of Ashara; it’s more about Cat than him actually.
5. It better explains why Benjen told Jon this when he asked to join the Night’s Watch
“You might, if you knew what it meant,” Benjen said. “If you knew what the oath would cost you, you might be less eager to pay the price, son.”
Jon felt anger rise inside him. “I’m not your son!”
Benjen Stark stood up. “More’s the pity.”
The oath would cost him Winterfell. It was what Jon always wanted. He wanted to be a hero to prove he was a true Stark, to prove Ned he was worthy and to earn the right of wielding his family sword. If Jon is Brandon’s then, not only he could have Winterfell but the possibility of wielding “Dawn”, which is the greatest sword ever, and his mother’s family sword.
6. It explains this nonsense:
"I will turn fifteen on my next name day, and Maester Luwin says bastards grow up faster than other children."
If Jon is Brandon’s, of course he’s older than Robb, and Maester Luwin knew the kid was older, so he came up with this idea that bastards grow up faster, because he needed to be younger, it was the “official” version of things, and Luwin had no way to explain it. I’m not saying Luwin knew who Jon is, but he could tell he was older than Robb. Which but the way, would explain why Ned took so many time to come back to Winterfell after the war, he needed time because there’s no way you can pose a 2 month baby as newborn, but you can reasonable do it once the baby is a little older.
And most important, if B+A= J and R+L=J and N+C=5 wargs then, the “awakening” of magic is much more reasonable.
Once this people with “magical blood” mingled with women from “afar” and stopped the incest bullshit, the magic awakened, because inbreeding is bad. The proof is that Dany also married a guy from afar and that’s how she awakens the 3 dragon eggs (probably 3 different kinds of powerful bloods involved could be the secret).
So, for Dany her “crypt dreams” are happy because finding out the truth about her parents is good news. For Jon his “crypt dreams” are creepy because finding out the truth is a horrible way to find out that Ned lied for his own sake and not Jon’s or Dany’s.
For Eddard, the honorable thing to do was to raise Jon as Brandon’s son and Lord of Winterfell. But ultimately he wasn’t that strong and he chose the woman he loved and his child over his brother’s. After all, the guy was only human.
When the war ended he found himself married to a woman that was not meant for him, fathered a son that wasn’t meant for him, heir to a title, a castle and a responsibility that weren’t meant for him, and by the time he had already made his peace with that burden and took those responsibilities on his shoulders, and fight a war he didn’t wanted or asked for, he finds out that still, none of it is meant for him. Brandon had a son, and it was all meant for him.
But the nightmare wasn’t over yet, Lyanna had a daughter, a “dragonspawn”, that had Robert or the Lannisters found out of her existence, would most likely end up just as dead as Rhaegar’s trueborn kids.
So Ned takes Brandon’s son and poses him like his bastard. He would raise the kid were he should, because that was his place.
And he left Lyanna’s daughter with someone that could made her pose as something else. It might be the Daynes or someone else.
Dany looked like a Targaryen or a Dayne and Jon looked as a Stark. More like a Stark than Ned’s kids. And truth is, Dany was not only a bastard but a girl, so he kept her from dying because she was Lyanna’s, but never really thought twice about her, until Robert wanted to kill her. I think at some point he found out she had been shipped to Essos, which is exactly what he suggested to Cersei she should do with her bastards, and that’s why once he knows that she was going to be murdered he starts to think about Lyanna and the broken promises and Jon and shame.
As for the Daynes, I’m not sure how involved they are, but there’s one thing that makes me think that at least Arthur was.
“They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three. They waited before the round tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now. (…)”
We know that Arthur would have killed Ned if not for Howland Reed, so maybe when Ned dreams about the Tower and the fight is just because Reed convinced Arthur that Ned wouldn’t kill the children, and the three that faced the seven were Ned, Arthur and Howland, killing the other 7 so they won’t talk.
What happened to Arthur or Ashara after this I really don’t know, but I think Arthur could very well be Qhorin, and his friendship with Mance would be a nice way to explain why Mance went three times to Winterfell and why is he so interested in the Crypts and helping Jon.
This “theory” only works if R+L=D and B+A=J, which honestly, I never believed it could make a lot of sense until I started to re-read AGoT looking for some plausible and logical explanation of what’s going on in the north.
So, if you think that there’s no way this could be true, then you might as well stop reading now and move on, but I think this is plausible and hopefully, you will also.
When Robert came to visit Ned, they went to the Crypts and Robert says this about Lyanna (and her dead body):
"She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean."
Now, we know Ned then tells him that this is where she belongs, but the truth is, the more you think about it the less it makes sense. At this point, Ned had at least one baby to hide before everyone knew said baby was a “dragonspawn”, not to mention he needed someone to fed the baby, so at least a wet-nurse (or another mother) was involved, he had five northerners to bury and if his dream of the Tower can be believed, three kingsguards; that makes 8 dead bodies plus Lyanna’s.
And she was not only dead but covered in blood and clearly with signs of being pregnant and giving birth. A woman that just gave birth still has a belly that is not easy to hide, not to mention that once the baby is born, the breasts are full of milk.
So, if he wanted to keep the whole thing secret is reasonable to think that he should involve the fewer people possible.
So the only way that Lyanna’s body could make it back to Winterfell is either if he carried the dead body around or if someone cleaned up the body so he could travel with the bones. Again, the logistics of cleaning a dead body are messy, and any person who saw the body would knew she was pregnant and had a child, so why would Ned trust that said person would keep quiet and not tell? Why would he risk that much for a bag of bones?
Even if the Daynes would help him to conceal the whole thing, there’s still a considerable distance from the Tower to Starfall. And again, it would involve more people than necessary.
That makes the idea of just bury Lyanna there much more reasonable.
So say she is buried on a hill in Dorne, under a fruit tree, a lemon tree. Why would it matter?
Because that would make Dany’s dream of the red door and the lemon tree mean something else. Those dreams wouldn’t be about a childhood that probably she never had, but her “crypt dreams”
All the Stark kids, and specially Jon, dream of the Crypts. In Jon dreams the place is dark (as it is in reality) and what awaits him is also dark because in the crypts the Starks “stares at eternal darkness”; but if Lyanna is not there, that’s not what she’s staring at, she is “staring” at a lemon tree in the red mountains of Dorne and that’s what Danny sees in her dreams, the house with the red door and the lemon tree is the Tower of Joy, she might think the door is red but it could be that it seems red because of the red mountains behind (part of the tower was used to bury the bodies), and Dany thinks that’s in Braavos because maybe it was there were she started to dream about it.
Of course unlike Jon, whose dreams are terrifying because finding out that Ned is not his father would be a terrifying thing for him, for Dany learning that she’s Rhaegar’s and Lyanna’s child would be great, even if it means she’s a bastard.
As for Jon, I’m starting to think that it makes much more sense that not only he’s Brandon’s son and not Ned’s, but that he’s also a trueborn son. I’ll just name a few, the more meaningful ones:
1. Jon looks like Brandon and he acts like him.
Brandon had the grey eyes of the Starks, and was hot-blooded what his father called “wolf-blood”. When you compare what we know about him and how he behaves, Jon is exactly like him, not like Ned.
Here are a couple of things:
• Brandon spent a time in Barrowtown, there he had a “thing” with Barbrey, but he knew his duty was elsewhere. Just like Jon with Ygritte.
• Brandon might have married Cat, but maybe he was already married; Jon might have married Ygritte, but he was already married with the Watch.
• At Harrenhal Brandon had to be restrained when Rhaegar crowned Lyanna because he thought it was an insult to her honor. Just like Jon had to be restrained when Thorne called Ned a traitor
• Brandon went straight to his dead when Lyanna was abducted; Jon went straight to his when “Arya” was abducted from Winterfell.
2. It would better explain lots of Ned’s reactions
There’s no doubt that Ned loved Lyanna, and maybe the pain over her dead is what doesn’t let him speak about her. But for Brandon, he feels a different kind of pain.
"Brandon. Yes. Brandon would know what to do. He always did. It was all meant for Brandon. You, Winterfell, everything.”
Truth is, there’s enough evidence in the text that proves that Cat was still in love with Brandon, even when the guy had been dead for a very long time, and Ned knew it. She even thinks that Brandon was better looking.
There’s no evidence that Ned loved Ashara, but maybe he liked her, and Brandon had her, so Ned could possibly think that it was all for Brandon: Cat, Winterfell, Ashara. He’s resentful towards his brother.
It would also explain why he feels ashamed when he thinks of Jon:
“The thought of Jon filled Ned with a sense of shame, and a sorrow too deep for words”
If Jon is Lyanna’s why would Ned be ashamed? He lied to protect the kid, and there’s honor in that lie, no reason to be ashamed. But if the lie is not honorable, then things change.
3. It would make Robb’s marriage even more meaningful
Robb married the Westerling girl because of his father’s alleged actions. He doesn’t want to father a bastard with one woman and marry another. We know Jon is not Ned’s son, and that makes the poor kid’s decision awful enough, but if Ned’s decision of posing Jon as a bastard was not an honorable thing to do, but a convenient thing to do, then, Robbs’s fate is worse.
4. It would better explain why Ned never told Cat
As I already mentioned, Cat loved Brandon, she was still in love with him after all these years, so if Jon is Brandon’s, Ned might wanted to spare her from the pain that not only Brandon didn’t loved her back, but the fact she had to raise the son that the guy had with another woman.
It would also explain why he forbids her to speak of Ashara; it’s more about Cat than him actually.
5. It better explains why Benjen told Jon this when he asked to join the Night’s Watch
“You might, if you knew what it meant,” Benjen said. “If you knew what the oath would cost you, you might be less eager to pay the price, son.”
Jon felt anger rise inside him. “I’m not your son!”
Benjen Stark stood up. “More’s the pity.”
The oath would cost him Winterfell. It was what Jon always wanted. He wanted to be a hero to prove he was a true Stark, to prove Ned he was worthy and to earn the right of wielding his family sword. If Jon is Brandon’s then, not only he could have Winterfell but the possibility of wielding “Dawn”, which is the greatest sword ever, and his mother’s family sword.
6. It explains this nonsense:
"I will turn fifteen on my next name day, and Maester Luwin says bastards grow up faster than other children."
If Jon is Brandon’s, of course he’s older than Robb, and Maester Luwin knew the kid was older, so he came up with this idea that bastards grow up faster, because he needed to be younger, it was the “official” version of things, and Luwin had no way to explain it. I’m not saying Luwin knew who Jon is, but he could tell he was older than Robb. Which but the way, would explain why Ned took so many time to come back to Winterfell after the war, he needed time because there’s no way you can pose a 2 month baby as newborn, but you can reasonable do it once the baby is a little older.
And most important, if B+A= J and R+L=J and N+C=5 wargs then, the “awakening” of magic is much more reasonable.
"He's of my village. You know nothing, Jon Snow. A true man steals a woman from afar, t' strengthen the clan.”
Once this people with “magical blood” mingled with women from “afar” and stopped the incest bullshit, the magic awakened, because inbreeding is bad. The proof is that Dany also married a guy from afar and that’s how she awakens the 3 dragon eggs (probably 3 different kinds of powerful bloods involved could be the secret).
So, for Dany her “crypt dreams” are happy because finding out the truth about her parents is good news. For Jon his “crypt dreams” are creepy because finding out the truth is a horrible way to find out that Ned lied for his own sake and not Jon’s or Dany’s.
"Tell me, Jon, if the day should ever come when your lord father must needs choose between honor on the one hand and those he loves on the other, what would he do?"
Jon hesitated. He wanted to say that Lord Eddard would never dishonor himself, not even for love, yet inside a small sly voice whispered, He fathered a bastard, where was the honor in that? And your mother, what of his duty to her, he will not even say her name. "He would do whatever was right," he said … ringingly, to make up for his hesitation. "No matter what."
"Then Lord Eddard is a man in ten thousand. Most of us are not so strong. What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms … or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.”
Jon hesitated. He wanted to say that Lord Eddard would never dishonor himself, not even for love, yet inside a small sly voice whispered, He fathered a bastard, where was the honor in that? And your mother, what of his duty to her, he will not even say her name. "He would do whatever was right," he said … ringingly, to make up for his hesitation. "No matter what."
"Then Lord Eddard is a man in ten thousand. Most of us are not so strong. What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms … or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.”
For Eddard, the honorable thing to do was to raise Jon as Brandon’s son and Lord of Winterfell. But ultimately he wasn’t that strong and he chose the woman he loved and his child over his brother’s. After all, the guy was only human.
When the war ended he found himself married to a woman that was not meant for him, fathered a son that wasn’t meant for him, heir to a title, a castle and a responsibility that weren’t meant for him, and by the time he had already made his peace with that burden and took those responsibilities on his shoulders, and fight a war he didn’t wanted or asked for, he finds out that still, none of it is meant for him. Brandon had a son, and it was all meant for him.
But the nightmare wasn’t over yet, Lyanna had a daughter, a “dragonspawn”, that had Robert or the Lannisters found out of her existence, would most likely end up just as dead as Rhaegar’s trueborn kids.
So Ned takes Brandon’s son and poses him like his bastard. He would raise the kid were he should, because that was his place.
And he left Lyanna’s daughter with someone that could made her pose as something else. It might be the Daynes or someone else.
Dany looked like a Targaryen or a Dayne and Jon looked as a Stark. More like a Stark than Ned’s kids. And truth is, Dany was not only a bastard but a girl, so he kept her from dying because she was Lyanna’s, but never really thought twice about her, until Robert wanted to kill her. I think at some point he found out she had been shipped to Essos, which is exactly what he suggested to Cersei she should do with her bastards, and that’s why once he knows that she was going to be murdered he starts to think about Lyanna and the broken promises and Jon and shame.
As for the Daynes, I’m not sure how involved they are, but there’s one thing that makes me think that at least Arthur was.
“They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three. They waited before the round tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now. (…)”
We know that Arthur would have killed Ned if not for Howland Reed, so maybe when Ned dreams about the Tower and the fight is just because Reed convinced Arthur that Ned wouldn’t kill the children, and the three that faced the seven were Ned, Arthur and Howland, killing the other 7 so they won’t talk.
What happened to Arthur or Ashara after this I really don’t know, but I think Arthur could very well be Qhorin, and his friendship with Mance would be a nice way to explain why Mance went three times to Winterfell and why is he so interested in the Crypts and helping Jon.