Post by nightsqueen on Oct 17, 2021 2:57:11 GMT
AGoT’s prologue raises a very interesting question almost right at the beginning, what proof have we?
The only proof we have that things happened the way we think they happened is that Ned said so.
(Or a horrible interpretation of the story in a TV show)
The only ‘evidence’ we have is a fever dream, which clearly cannot be taken as an account of the events as they happened. But that dream hides the key to finding Jon’s father and proving without a doubt who he is.
There is a peculiarity of the Winterfell’s Crypt: it has pillars that go two by two until we find that, instead of the classic statue of the Lord, there are 3 statues together, Rickard, Brandon and Lyanna, something that clearly, is not normal.
To decipher Ned’s dream, we must consider this detail, the 3 statues of the Starks are 3 “sphinxes”, so each Stark is at the same time three people, a KG of Ned’s dream, a brother of the NW from AGoT’s Prologue and of course, one of the Starks depicted in the statue.
Rickard is at the same time Gared and Gerold; Brandon is at the same time Waymar and Arthur, and Lyanna is at the same time Will and Oswell.
There are 3 elements in Ned’s dream: 3 knights, a round Tower, and Lyanna in her “bed of blood”.
The dream begins with Ned riding with his friends (they are shadows), and curiously they are 6, like the number of vows of the NW and the number of Others in the prologue.
The access to the crypt of WF is at the foot of a tower, which like the one in the dream, is rounded.
The 3 NW brothers from the prologue have been riding for 9 days following the trail of 8 wildlings, 8 is the number of people who die in Ned’s dream, and we’ll see in Part IV why this number is relevant.
The importance of the number 9 is what I mentioned about the parallels between these 3 groups of 3 people and also 2 peculiarities, Jon swears his vows in a grove of 9 trees and the crown of the Winter Kings has 9 iron swords.
“They’re dead.” says Gared in the prologue, “They shan’t trouble us no more.” But Waymar insists, and asks Will to tell him all the details of what he saw. From that point on, the Prologue is divided into 3 parts:
The first, is a kind of introduction to Ned’s dream in which all the dream’s red flags are marked, everything that doesn’t make any sense in his version of events, from Dustin’s horse, to why 8 people ended up dead if things happened more or less as Ned tells them.
The second part begins with something like a ‘scene change’ in which the twilight deepens. That part tells us how the long night came for the dragons. I’ll talk about that in Part III
The third, the one we are interested in, begins when Ser Waymar “gained the ridge”, that is, when he arrives at the scene where the 8 wildlings are supposed to be (or where their corpses are supposed to be). On a ridge, is where Ned is supposed to have buried the 8 men that die in the episode he dreams about.
The moment that Ned arrives at the Tower in the dream matches, as I said, with the moment that Waymar arrives on the scene and finds that there is no one there. Which is exactly what happened to Ned in the war, he was late to all battles.
In the prologue, Waymar tells Will to climb a tree and “look for a fire.” This is where Ned’s dream and the prologue merge.
Ned sees the 3 KG and the description he makes is quite peculiar.
“Yet these were no ordinary three. (…). And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now.”
These men faces “burn”, as opposed to his friends, who are only shadows, so basically, this dream is Ned “looking for a fire”.
Let’s see Ned’s description of the 3 KG:
“Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had a sad smile on his lips. The hilt of the greatsword Dawn poked up over his right shoulder. Ser Oswell Whent was on one knee, sharpening his blade with a whetstone. Across his white-enameled helm, the black bat of his House spread its wings. Between them stood fierce old Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.”
In the description of each man, we find 2 vows from the NW, and that is hinted at by the double pillars of the WF crypt that surround the 3 statues.
Arthur, the sword of the morning. I am the sword in the darkness
Ser Oswell, the black bat. I am the watcher on the walls
Stood fierce Ser Gerlold. The fire that burns against the cold
Dawn pocked over his right shoulder. The light that brings the dawn
Sharpening his blade*. The horn that wakes the sleepers
The white bull. The shield that guards the realms of men
*In Part I I talked about the flower from Bael’s song, and the link with Lyanna’s crowning, where Rhaegar puts the flowers on Lyanna’s lap, where the swords go in the statues. I said that the flower in the song is a “horn”, a warning, like finding a man sharpening his sword. Later this idea will be clearer.
In the dream, Ned tells them a number of things, and the key to understanding what the dream is really about is that, for everything that Ned says, there is an exact correspondence to something that happens in the prologue.
This happens in the Prologue:
Down below, the lordling called out suddenly, “Who goes there?” Will heard uncertainty in the challenge.”
While this happens in Ned’s dream
“I looked for you on the Trident,” Ned said to them.
“We were not there,” Ser Gerold answered.
“Woe to the Usurper if we had been,” said Ser Oswell.
The only one not responding is Arthur Dayne.
While this happens in the prologue:
“The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. (…) Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?”
Arthur is supposed to be wearing white like any KG, and that’s exactly what Will sees, a white figure. When he wants to warn Waymar, “the words seemed to freeze” which is a reference to Arthur’s snowy white cloak. Will thinks that maybe it was a bird, a reflection in the snow, and in fact, the KG is a reflection of the NW, and the black brothers are called “crows”.
Ned’s dream continues:
“When King’s Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were.”
“Far away,” Ser Gerold said, “or Aerys would yet sit the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in seven hells.”
In the prologue Waymar also wonders:
“Will, where are you?” Ser Waymar called up. “Can you see anything?” He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see.”
The ‘false brother’ is Brandon who, as I will prove in the next part, didn’t die in KL, that’s why the “there was nothing to see” in KL, Rickard was burned and Brandon wasn’t there. In the dream, Brandon is just as Arthur, an enemy.
Next question from Ned:
“I came down on Storm’s End to lift the siege,” Ned told them, (…) I was certain you would be among them.”
This time, the only one who responds, and very coldly, is Ser Arthur: “Our knees do not bend easily”
Waymar is starting to feel very cold.
“Answer me! Why is it so cold?”
It was cold. Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch”.
I said when talking about the NW vows and the parallels with the KG position in the dream that the “horn” corresponds to the image of Oswell (Lyanna) on his knees sharpening his blade. The “horn” in the dream is Lyanna screaming: Eddard! because she is Ned’s enemy too, not a victim locked in some tower.
In the prologue, Waymar fights with an Other, and despite all his bravery, he loses miserably basically because he faces a far superior and cruel swordsman.
In Ned’s dream, there is one last dialogue that is also quite cruel.
“Ser Willem is a good man and true,” said Ser Oswell.
“But not of the Kingsguard,” Ser Gerold pointed out. “The Kingsguard does not flee.”
“Then or now,” said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.
“We swore a vow,” explained old Ser Gerold.
What Oswell (Lyanna) says, is what Ned told Lyanna about Robert when she found out that he had a bastard, and Ned tried to assure her that once he got married he was going to behave differently.
What Gerold (Rickard) says, (in Ned’s mind of course), is related to two things that Ned thought in the crypt when Robert went to Winterfell.
The first is that “all swords” failed Rickard and the second, is that “darkness” is Lyanna’s place:
“Ah, damn it, Ned, did you have to bury her in a place like this?” His voice was hoarse with remembered grief. “She deserved more than darkness …”
“She was a Stark of Winterfell,” Ned said quietly. “This is her place.”
Lyanna’s statue is not a tribute, it’s a punishment. Lyanna is, like Brandon, Rickard’s “Kingsguard”, they are sentinels who, as in the NW legend, are fulfilling in death what they failed, according to Ned, to do while living.
Now to the main point, the proof that Arthur, not Rhaegar, is definitely, and beyond a doubt, Jon’s father.
I said before that to the vow “the light that brings the dawn”, corresponds Arthur’s image of “sword of the morning” with Dawn pocking “over his right shoulder”.
When, after the duel, Will dares to come down from the tree and goes to check Waymar’s body, he thinks something that inevitably made me think of Jon: “Lying dead like that, you saw how young he was. A boy. “
But the interesting thing happens later. Will thinks “the broken sword would be his proof” and this happens:
“Will rose. Ser Waymar Royce stood over him.
His fine clothes were a tatter, his face a ruin. A shard from his sword transfixed the blind white pupil of his left eye.”
In the dream, Arthur has the sword pointed in a right to left direction, that’s why the hilt pokes over his right shoulder, Waymar has a piece of sword sticking out of his left eye.
The “broken sword” that crosses Waymar from right to left is proof that Arthur Dayne is Jon’s father.
dayne
What proof have we? Waymar, our first proof asks, and he answers.
The second proof is Ghost, the third is that the “broken sword” Bran Stark names his wolf Summer after seeing the “face” of winter in his comatose dream.
“He must have crawled away from the others,” Jon said.
Or been driven away,” their father said, looking at the sixth pup. His fur was white, where the rest of the litter was grey. His eyes were as red as the blood of the ragged man who had died that morning. Bran thought it curious that this pup alone would have opened his eyes while the others were still blind.”
Ghost is white like Arthur’s white cloak and with eyes as red as the mountains of Dorne that Ned sees in the dream behind the round tower.
B. The sword in the darkness
I don’t have all the details of how things happened obviously, but there are a few things we can infer, that I will talk about in the next part.
“Dead men sing no songs” says Will in the prologue, but the song Mance sings when he meets Jon, “The Dornishman’s Wife” suggests that the Dornishman had a story to tell and that it didn’t include a bastard.
There are some interesting clues that point to the importance of Arthur in the story.
Waymar leaves with 2 companions, only one returns, Gared, (whom Ned beheads in WF when Jon finds Ghost).
Waymar is a very clear parallel of Arthur (actually of several heroes in this story, he is the “hero” image), the first thing Will mentions of the failed hero is his smile, Ned also remembers Arthur’s smile in the first place. Waymar’s sword is a “splendid weapon”, the Dayne’s is supposed to be the best sword in Westeros.
The NW sends a second group, Benjen’s, to find the missing Waymar, from that group 2 “people” return, Othor and Flowers (their frozen corpses).
Those corpses are the ones that rise in the middle of the night. Everyone thinks that Othor’s intention is to kill Mormont, but the room where Jon finds the ranger, is the one where Longclaw was. The sword that Jon wins as a reward and that was “forgotten”, as Arthur. The sword is obviously not Dawn, but it is a “splendid weapon”.
But there’s another detail, Jon goes north being the living breathing image of a WF statue, or the Last Hero very image, with “a sword, a horse, a dog” and as the Daynes of legend, following a shooting star (the comet).
The first person Jon meets beyond the Wall is Craster, the closest thing to a Targaryen you can find, and Jon’s rejection explains how Arthur Dayne ended up being a Stark, as I’ll (hopefully) prove in Part III.
This is the moment that Jon meets his father, and unlike what Bael song says, he recognized him immediately:
“Jon knew Qhorin Halfhand the instant he saw him, though they had never met. The big ranger was half a legend in the Watch; a man of slow words and swift action, tall and straight as a spear, long-limbed and solemn. Unlike his men, he was clean-shaven. His hair fell from beneath his helm in a heavy braid touched with hoarfrost, and the blacks he wore were so faded they might have been greys. (…)Since that day, the wildlings beyond the Wall had known no foe more implacable.” Jon V – ACoK
Qhorin’s description is basically that of a direwolf, he even dresses in gray. Qhorin, who even has grey eyes, could be any Stark, with the detail of being “tall and straight as a spear”, like a dornish spear.
Jon thinks of him as an “implacable” foe, and Will felt that something were watching them, something “cold and implacable“.
Contrary to what usually happens, with women wearing their husbands colors, Arthur became a Stark. In fact, in the “sphinx” that the statues of WF represent, the wolf, is actually Arthur Dayne.
I’m not going to go into Qhorin’s story with Jon because, as much as I like it (though his story breaks my heart), it would drag things out for too long. Some remarkable things: Qhorin mentions a wedding, Jon “awakens” his connection with Ghost while sleeping with Qhorin, and the night before meeting him, Jon hears the “song” of a wolf and thinks it’s a sad and lonely song. Like Arthur, the wolf who was “driven away”.
I’m only going to briefly talk about the mission that Qhorin entrusts to Jon and that begins with a “hear me” as if it were the announcement of a horn:
“Then hear me. If we are taken, you will go over to them, as the wildling girl you captured once urged you. They may demand that you cut your cloak to ribbons, that you swear them an oath on your father’s grave, that you curse your brothers and your Lord Commander. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you. Do as they bid you . . . but in your heart, remember who and what you are. Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them, for as long as it takes. And watch.”
Arthur was the “sword of the morning” and that, I think, meant a lot more than just being a great swordsman.
Rhaegar, as Waymar in the prologue, was looking for something, and during that search, Dayne, who was his “constant companion” saw more than he could tolerate, the same thing happened to Jon, he ‘watched’ until the pink letter, that was his limit, same as Arthur’s.
Wymar tells Will “tell me again what you saw, all the details” hinting at Rhaegar’s fascination (obsession) with prophecies and visions.
At some point, like Will, Arthur decided it was time to see him fall, by facing an enemy infinitely more dangerous than dragons. Lyanna Stark.
The only proof we have that things happened the way we think they happened is that Ned said so.
(Or a horrible interpretation of the story in a TV show)
The only ‘evidence’ we have is a fever dream, which clearly cannot be taken as an account of the events as they happened. But that dream hides the key to finding Jon’s father and proving without a doubt who he is.
There is a peculiarity of the Winterfell’s Crypt: it has pillars that go two by two until we find that, instead of the classic statue of the Lord, there are 3 statues together, Rickard, Brandon and Lyanna, something that clearly, is not normal.
To decipher Ned’s dream, we must consider this detail, the 3 statues of the Starks are 3 “sphinxes”, so each Stark is at the same time three people, a KG of Ned’s dream, a brother of the NW from AGoT’s Prologue and of course, one of the Starks depicted in the statue.
Rickard is at the same time Gared and Gerold; Brandon is at the same time Waymar and Arthur, and Lyanna is at the same time Will and Oswell.
There are 3 elements in Ned’s dream: 3 knights, a round Tower, and Lyanna in her “bed of blood”.
The dream begins with Ned riding with his friends (they are shadows), and curiously they are 6, like the number of vows of the NW and the number of Others in the prologue.
The access to the crypt of WF is at the foot of a tower, which like the one in the dream, is rounded.
The 3 NW brothers from the prologue have been riding for 9 days following the trail of 8 wildlings, 8 is the number of people who die in Ned’s dream, and we’ll see in Part IV why this number is relevant.
The importance of the number 9 is what I mentioned about the parallels between these 3 groups of 3 people and also 2 peculiarities, Jon swears his vows in a grove of 9 trees and the crown of the Winter Kings has 9 iron swords.
“They’re dead.” says Gared in the prologue, “They shan’t trouble us no more.” But Waymar insists, and asks Will to tell him all the details of what he saw. From that point on, the Prologue is divided into 3 parts:
The first, is a kind of introduction to Ned’s dream in which all the dream’s red flags are marked, everything that doesn’t make any sense in his version of events, from Dustin’s horse, to why 8 people ended up dead if things happened more or less as Ned tells them.
The second part begins with something like a ‘scene change’ in which the twilight deepens. That part tells us how the long night came for the dragons. I’ll talk about that in Part III
The third, the one we are interested in, begins when Ser Waymar “gained the ridge”, that is, when he arrives at the scene where the 8 wildlings are supposed to be (or where their corpses are supposed to be). On a ridge, is where Ned is supposed to have buried the 8 men that die in the episode he dreams about.
The moment that Ned arrives at the Tower in the dream matches, as I said, with the moment that Waymar arrives on the scene and finds that there is no one there. Which is exactly what happened to Ned in the war, he was late to all battles.
In the prologue, Waymar tells Will to climb a tree and “look for a fire.” This is where Ned’s dream and the prologue merge.
Ned sees the 3 KG and the description he makes is quite peculiar.
“Yet these were no ordinary three. (…). And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now.”
These men faces “burn”, as opposed to his friends, who are only shadows, so basically, this dream is Ned “looking for a fire”.
Let’s see Ned’s description of the 3 KG:
“Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had a sad smile on his lips. The hilt of the greatsword Dawn poked up over his right shoulder. Ser Oswell Whent was on one knee, sharpening his blade with a whetstone. Across his white-enameled helm, the black bat of his House spread its wings. Between them stood fierce old Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.”
In the description of each man, we find 2 vows from the NW, and that is hinted at by the double pillars of the WF crypt that surround the 3 statues.
Arthur, the sword of the morning. I am the sword in the darkness
Ser Oswell, the black bat. I am the watcher on the walls
Stood fierce Ser Gerlold. The fire that burns against the cold
Dawn pocked over his right shoulder. The light that brings the dawn
Sharpening his blade*. The horn that wakes the sleepers
The white bull. The shield that guards the realms of men
*In Part I I talked about the flower from Bael’s song, and the link with Lyanna’s crowning, where Rhaegar puts the flowers on Lyanna’s lap, where the swords go in the statues. I said that the flower in the song is a “horn”, a warning, like finding a man sharpening his sword. Later this idea will be clearer.
In the dream, Ned tells them a number of things, and the key to understanding what the dream is really about is that, for everything that Ned says, there is an exact correspondence to something that happens in the prologue.
This happens in the Prologue:
Down below, the lordling called out suddenly, “Who goes there?” Will heard uncertainty in the challenge.”
While this happens in Ned’s dream
“I looked for you on the Trident,” Ned said to them.
“We were not there,” Ser Gerold answered.
“Woe to the Usurper if we had been,” said Ser Oswell.
The only one not responding is Arthur Dayne.
While this happens in the prologue:
“The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. (…) Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?”
Arthur is supposed to be wearing white like any KG, and that’s exactly what Will sees, a white figure. When he wants to warn Waymar, “the words seemed to freeze” which is a reference to Arthur’s snowy white cloak. Will thinks that maybe it was a bird, a reflection in the snow, and in fact, the KG is a reflection of the NW, and the black brothers are called “crows”.
Ned’s dream continues:
“When King’s Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were.”
“Far away,” Ser Gerold said, “or Aerys would yet sit the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in seven hells.”
In the prologue Waymar also wonders:
“Will, where are you?” Ser Waymar called up. “Can you see anything?” He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see.”
The ‘false brother’ is Brandon who, as I will prove in the next part, didn’t die in KL, that’s why the “there was nothing to see” in KL, Rickard was burned and Brandon wasn’t there. In the dream, Brandon is just as Arthur, an enemy.
Next question from Ned:
“I came down on Storm’s End to lift the siege,” Ned told them, (…) I was certain you would be among them.”
This time, the only one who responds, and very coldly, is Ser Arthur: “Our knees do not bend easily”
Waymar is starting to feel very cold.
“Answer me! Why is it so cold?”
It was cold. Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch”.
I said when talking about the NW vows and the parallels with the KG position in the dream that the “horn” corresponds to the image of Oswell (Lyanna) on his knees sharpening his blade. The “horn” in the dream is Lyanna screaming: Eddard! because she is Ned’s enemy too, not a victim locked in some tower.
In the prologue, Waymar fights with an Other, and despite all his bravery, he loses miserably basically because he faces a far superior and cruel swordsman.
In Ned’s dream, there is one last dialogue that is also quite cruel.
“Ser Willem is a good man and true,” said Ser Oswell.
“But not of the Kingsguard,” Ser Gerold pointed out. “The Kingsguard does not flee.”
“Then or now,” said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.
“We swore a vow,” explained old Ser Gerold.
What Oswell (Lyanna) says, is what Ned told Lyanna about Robert when she found out that he had a bastard, and Ned tried to assure her that once he got married he was going to behave differently.
What Gerold (Rickard) says, (in Ned’s mind of course), is related to two things that Ned thought in the crypt when Robert went to Winterfell.
The first is that “all swords” failed Rickard and the second, is that “darkness” is Lyanna’s place:
“Ah, damn it, Ned, did you have to bury her in a place like this?” His voice was hoarse with remembered grief. “She deserved more than darkness …”
“She was a Stark of Winterfell,” Ned said quietly. “This is her place.”
Lyanna’s statue is not a tribute, it’s a punishment. Lyanna is, like Brandon, Rickard’s “Kingsguard”, they are sentinels who, as in the NW legend, are fulfilling in death what they failed, according to Ned, to do while living.
Now to the main point, the proof that Arthur, not Rhaegar, is definitely, and beyond a doubt, Jon’s father.
I said before that to the vow “the light that brings the dawn”, corresponds Arthur’s image of “sword of the morning” with Dawn pocking “over his right shoulder”.
When, after the duel, Will dares to come down from the tree and goes to check Waymar’s body, he thinks something that inevitably made me think of Jon: “Lying dead like that, you saw how young he was. A boy. “
But the interesting thing happens later. Will thinks “the broken sword would be his proof” and this happens:
“Will rose. Ser Waymar Royce stood over him.
His fine clothes were a tatter, his face a ruin. A shard from his sword transfixed the blind white pupil of his left eye.”
In the dream, Arthur has the sword pointed in a right to left direction, that’s why the hilt pokes over his right shoulder, Waymar has a piece of sword sticking out of his left eye.
The “broken sword” that crosses Waymar from right to left is proof that Arthur Dayne is Jon’s father.
dayne
What proof have we? Waymar, our first proof asks, and he answers.
The second proof is Ghost, the third is that the “broken sword” Bran Stark names his wolf Summer after seeing the “face” of winter in his comatose dream.
“He must have crawled away from the others,” Jon said.
Or been driven away,” their father said, looking at the sixth pup. His fur was white, where the rest of the litter was grey. His eyes were as red as the blood of the ragged man who had died that morning. Bran thought it curious that this pup alone would have opened his eyes while the others were still blind.”
Ghost is white like Arthur’s white cloak and with eyes as red as the mountains of Dorne that Ned sees in the dream behind the round tower.
B. The sword in the darkness
I don’t have all the details of how things happened obviously, but there are a few things we can infer, that I will talk about in the next part.
“Dead men sing no songs” says Will in the prologue, but the song Mance sings when he meets Jon, “The Dornishman’s Wife” suggests that the Dornishman had a story to tell and that it didn’t include a bastard.
There are some interesting clues that point to the importance of Arthur in the story.
Waymar leaves with 2 companions, only one returns, Gared, (whom Ned beheads in WF when Jon finds Ghost).
Waymar is a very clear parallel of Arthur (actually of several heroes in this story, he is the “hero” image), the first thing Will mentions of the failed hero is his smile, Ned also remembers Arthur’s smile in the first place. Waymar’s sword is a “splendid weapon”, the Dayne’s is supposed to be the best sword in Westeros.
The NW sends a second group, Benjen’s, to find the missing Waymar, from that group 2 “people” return, Othor and Flowers (their frozen corpses).
Those corpses are the ones that rise in the middle of the night. Everyone thinks that Othor’s intention is to kill Mormont, but the room where Jon finds the ranger, is the one where Longclaw was. The sword that Jon wins as a reward and that was “forgotten”, as Arthur. The sword is obviously not Dawn, but it is a “splendid weapon”.
But there’s another detail, Jon goes north being the living breathing image of a WF statue, or the Last Hero very image, with “a sword, a horse, a dog” and as the Daynes of legend, following a shooting star (the comet).
The first person Jon meets beyond the Wall is Craster, the closest thing to a Targaryen you can find, and Jon’s rejection explains how Arthur Dayne ended up being a Stark, as I’ll (hopefully) prove in Part III.
This is the moment that Jon meets his father, and unlike what Bael song says, he recognized him immediately:
“Jon knew Qhorin Halfhand the instant he saw him, though they had never met. The big ranger was half a legend in the Watch; a man of slow words and swift action, tall and straight as a spear, long-limbed and solemn. Unlike his men, he was clean-shaven. His hair fell from beneath his helm in a heavy braid touched with hoarfrost, and the blacks he wore were so faded they might have been greys. (…)Since that day, the wildlings beyond the Wall had known no foe more implacable.” Jon V – ACoK
Qhorin’s description is basically that of a direwolf, he even dresses in gray. Qhorin, who even has grey eyes, could be any Stark, with the detail of being “tall and straight as a spear”, like a dornish spear.
Jon thinks of him as an “implacable” foe, and Will felt that something were watching them, something “cold and implacable“.
Contrary to what usually happens, with women wearing their husbands colors, Arthur became a Stark. In fact, in the “sphinx” that the statues of WF represent, the wolf, is actually Arthur Dayne.
I’m not going to go into Qhorin’s story with Jon because, as much as I like it (though his story breaks my heart), it would drag things out for too long. Some remarkable things: Qhorin mentions a wedding, Jon “awakens” his connection with Ghost while sleeping with Qhorin, and the night before meeting him, Jon hears the “song” of a wolf and thinks it’s a sad and lonely song. Like Arthur, the wolf who was “driven away”.
I’m only going to briefly talk about the mission that Qhorin entrusts to Jon and that begins with a “hear me” as if it were the announcement of a horn:
“Then hear me. If we are taken, you will go over to them, as the wildling girl you captured once urged you. They may demand that you cut your cloak to ribbons, that you swear them an oath on your father’s grave, that you curse your brothers and your Lord Commander. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you. Do as they bid you . . . but in your heart, remember who and what you are. Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them, for as long as it takes. And watch.”
Arthur was the “sword of the morning” and that, I think, meant a lot more than just being a great swordsman.
Rhaegar, as Waymar in the prologue, was looking for something, and during that search, Dayne, who was his “constant companion” saw more than he could tolerate, the same thing happened to Jon, he ‘watched’ until the pink letter, that was his limit, same as Arthur’s.
Wymar tells Will “tell me again what you saw, all the details” hinting at Rhaegar’s fascination (obsession) with prophecies and visions.
At some point, like Will, Arthur decided it was time to see him fall, by facing an enemy infinitely more dangerous than dragons. Lyanna Stark.
