What is the non-RLJ explanation for Rhaegar crowning Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty?
And why did GRRM write these opinions into the heads of his characters? Most of them seem to think Rhaegar loved Lyanna. I'm not saying they're right, but something had to give them that impression. The evidence, in this case, is the belief itself. I see 3 possibilities:
1.) Rhaegar and Lyanna were clearly, publicly in love. 2.) Rhaegar kidnapped Lyanna, and people assumed it was for love (why else? he didn't hold her hostage against Stark loyalty) 3.) None of the above happened, but instead someone paid good money to a few dozen singers to spread this false tale, and amazingly, all of them died without revealing they were part of a massive plot to deceive a continent.
So it is the belief itself which stems from how they viewed the crowning and the notion he ran off with her.
The issue is no one, not Jon Con, Selmy' no one can give intimate info on this wildly held belief.Nothing on Rhaegar saying anything regarding Lyanna Stark.
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes"--Sherlock Holmes"
his time, Ned resolved to keep his temper. "Your Grace, the girl is scarcely more than a child. You are no Tywin Lannister, to slaughter innocents." It was said that Rhaegar's little girl had cried as they dragged her from beneath her bed to face the swords. The boy had been no more than a babe in arms, yet Lord Tywin's soldiers had torn him from his mother's breast and dashed his head against a wall. "And how long will this one remain an innocent?" Robert's mouth grew hard. "This child will soon enough spread her legs and start breeding more dragonspawn to plague me." "Nonetheless," Ned said, "the murder of children . . . it would be vile . . . unspeakable . . . " "Unspeakable?" the king roared. "What Aerys did to your brother Brandon was unspeakable. The way your lord father died, that was unspeakable. And Rhaegar . . . how many times do you think he raped your sister? How many hundreds of times?" His voice had grown so loud that his horse whinnied nervously beneath him. The king jerked the reins hard, quieting the animal, and pointed an angry finger at Ned. "I will kill every Targaryen I can get my hands on, until they are as dead as their dragons, and then I will piss on their graves."
Ned clearly has good reason to hate the Targaryens, who killed his brother and father. At last we get to learn what Rhaegar's crime was, too. This is the sister who Ned "loved fiercely", dead and apparently raped hundreds of times by Rhaegar. Yet Ned is fiercely protective of Targaryen children, so angered by Robert's belief that their death was a necessity that it almost destroyed their friendship. Chapter 13 turns from Ned's journey south to Jon & Tyrion's journey north. The main thrust of this chapter is Jon learning that joining the Night's Watch is essentially an exile. Ned and co. are heading towards exciting adventure in the south, and he's off North to defend the world from snarks and grumkins amongst a brotherhood of scum. Poor Jon. We also get another comment about Jon's looks.
Congratulations on a well-written essay. While I remain unconvinced, I could still appreciate the parallels that you were making. I agree that GRRM seems to be leading us down this path and then repeats the various patterns, but those are the very reasons why I remain suspicious. When the characters repeatedly say Lyanna was kidnapped by Rhaegar, it makes me wonder if that is true. By the time we get to the Red Wedding, it became clear to me that I cannot trust this author to do anything obvious!
I actually see the above as contradicting your theory. Ned should have every reason to hate the man that caused the death of his sister, kindapping or not, and yet there are no feelings of anger or need for vengeance. You could view Ned's thoughts through a lens where Rhaegar is not the father, and that Ned knows that he isn't, but has allowed everyone in Westeros to believe that he had. One of the lies that he has kept then is that Rhaegar isn't the father and doesn't deserve to take the blame. That would keep Rhaegar's reputation as remaining noble in Ned's eyes.
I love the echoing when it comes to Arya and Lyanna.I agree and have noted that there is a fair amount of telling about Lyanna's life in Arya's story.We can glean a lot about the past,by watching Jon and Arya's interaction.
And if we were to dwell on what happened to Arya, maybe we should keep in mind that she was disguised as a boy and was on her way to the Wall. Maybe that is the true reason behind Lyanna's disappearance.
What is the non-RLJ explanation for Rhaegar crowning Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty?
After the Knight of the Laughing Tree defeated the knights with the three squires that had dishonored the crannogman, he disappears. Aerys sends Rhaegar to search for the KotLT. We can assume that he did some detective work and learned about the incident between the crannogman and the squires. Now he knows why the KotLT wanted the squires chastised. He also learns that a crannogman was staying with the Starks, and he probably heard about Lyanna fighting them off with a wooden sword. Rhaegar is piecing this puzzle together. Added to that is that since the KotLT doesn't show up the next morning, there are only two champions remaining to fight off challengers in the tilt, so in effect increasing Rhaegar's chances that he would win. So, Rhaegar presents the laurel to Lyanna as a way of giving and sharing credit where credit is due.
And why did GRRM write these opinions into the heads of his characters? Most of them seem to think Rhaegar loved Lyanna.
Many people loved and admired Rhaegar and would not have believed that he could do such a thing, so it must have been for love. Barristan in particular is a romantic who holds his own sentimental memories about his unrequited love for Ashara, so he projects those feelings on Rhaegar.
In essence yeah but not superimposing one person's experiance that we do know on another whose "experiance" we don't have details for.
We know she was tomboyish yes. We don't know she dressed as a boy and ran off to the Wall.If there's a link that shows this happened to Lyanna yes,but we don't know. All we have is that she died in a room that smelt of roses or flowers.I cant remember which they used.
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes"--Sherlock Holmes"
I actually see the above as contradicting your theory. Ned should have every reason to hate the man that caused the death of his sister, kindapping or not, and yet there are no feelings of anger or need for vengeance. You could view Ned's thoughts through a lens where Rhaegar is not the father, and that Ned knows that he isn't, but has allowed everyone in Westeros to believe that he had. One of the lies that he has kept then is that Rhaegar isn't the father and doesn't deserve to take the blame. That would keep Rhaegar's reputation as remaining noble in Ned's eyes.
Ned isn't that vengeful. There is reason for Ned to hate Targs even if Rhaegar had nothing to do with Lyanna's death, because Aerys certainly had a lot to do with the deaths of Rickard and Brandon. Despite that, Ned displays little hatred towards Aerys. He recognises the necessity of disposing of Aerys, but holds Jaime in contempt for having done so because Jaime betrayed his vows in doing that. Ned isn't big on vengeance, and doesn't hold grudges against the dead.
So why would Ned have any great feelings of anger towards Rhaegar? Even if he believed that Rhaegar was the man "that caused the death of his sister" we shouldn't expect to see any more negative thoughts towards Rhaegar than he has towards Aerys. However there's nothing to imply that he did believe that of Rhaegar, and nothing to imply that he would have in the R+L=J scenario. If Lyanna died in childbirth, her death was accident and tragedy. Rhaegar's actions may have lead to that tragedy, but only circumstantially -- he (probably) didn't intend her death. Ned's wolf blood comment implies that Ned viewed Lyanna as being active in her own demise. He may, for example, have believed that she ran away with Rhaegar. Rhaegar can be the father and still deserve no blame -- or at least no more than Lyanna does herself.
He knows that the Rebellion had no honor because Rhaegar was not responsible for Lyanna’s disappearance and he tells Robert very directly that the conquest had no honor. Robert believed it had honor and he avenged Lyanna. Notice that Ned says “you” avenged Lyanna and not “we”.
Indeed he does; Ned doesn't seem to put much blame on Rhaegar. Does that mean the rebellion had no honour? I don't think so. It means that the revenge for Lyanna's kidnapping was not Ned's reasoning for going to war with the Targaryen regime. Not surprising; Ned is no Robert. Look at chapter 1, where Ned executes the Night's Watch deserter. Killing is a sport for Robert; for Ned it's a ruler's responsibility to his people.
There's a line of Ned's which tends to get ignored because it has no basis that we know:
"Robert, I ask you, what did we rise against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of children?"
What's that about? We don't know. I think it's quite likely it's a detail that GRRM just never got around to revisiting, but it doesn't have much to do with Rhaegar kidnapping Lyanna, that's for sure. It's about Ned feeling that Aerys' reign was bad for the Kingdom, and that he had to do something about it. Ned fought because the man who passes the sentence must swing the sword, not because he wanted revenge.
When Ned entered the throne room during the sack, he was outraged to find Jamie sitting on the Iron Throne. He's disgusted at Jaime's oath-breaking killing of the "mad king", and his abiding sense of the Rebellion is that he hates the Lannisters. Why is Robert's throne attainted? Because he's in bed with the Lannisters. He married a Lannister, he retained Jaime as a Kingsguard. If as you suggest Ned viewed the Rebellion as lacking honour because Rhaegar was not really guilty of Lyanna's abduction, where does the Lannister hatred come from?
Had the Lannisters been responsible for Lyanna's death, then Ned has had plenty of time to say so. When he decided it was time Robert knew the full story, he could have talked about Lyanna's abduction then, but he didn't, he talked about the Lannisters at the sack. It's the events of the sack that turned Ned against the Lannisters.
Robert tars all Targaryens with the sins of those he fought. Dany and Viserys did no wrong, but he wants their blood. Ned is different. He doesn't revel in revenge, he fights out of necessity. To Ned, the rebellion was not a glorious rebellion, it was a necessary rebellion, to oust a mad king who was bad for the kingdom. It was a tragic necessity, fought for the good of the kingdom. Then the Lannisters turned up and turned it into a power grab. THAT is what tainted Robert's throne and Robert's rebellion in Ned's eyes, THAT is what he's trying to explain to Robert.
Post by whitewolfstark on Dec 20, 2015 23:31:57 GMT
Having just read Bitterblooms, the blue rose hint makes a lot more sense. Blue roses in Bitterblooms are planted by a woman claiming to be Morgan of Morganhall. She rescues the protagonist, Shawn, and keeps her in the spaceship. The Bitterblooms grow all around the spaceship--with it first being noticed by our protagonist Shawn when she sees one growing out of an iced over cliff on the bank of a river that's deep enough in the middle of deepwinter (takes place on a planet with multi-year seasons I should note) that it requires Shawn to climb:
"From the high bank where she paused, she could see the remains of two bridges that had once spanned the narrow channel, but both of them had fallen long ago. The river was frozen over, however, so she had no trouble crossing it. In deepwinter the ice was thick and solid and there was no danger of her falling through.
As she climbed painstakingly up the far bank, Shawn came upon the flower.
It was a very small thing, its thick black stem emerging from between two rocks low on the river bank. She might never have seen it in the night, but her pole dislodged one of the ice-covered stones as she struggled up the slope, and the noise made her glance down to where it grew.
It startled her so that she took both poles in one hand, and with the other fumbled in the deepest recesses of her clothing, so that she might risk a flame. The match gave a short, intense light. But it was enough; Shawn saw.
A flower, tiny, so tiny, with four blue petals, each the same pale blue shade that Lane’s lips had been just before he died. A flower, here, alive, growing in the eighth year of deepwinter, when all the world was dead."
Going back to that vision in the House of the Undying, you have a very similar image appearing of a blue rose growing out of a chink of ice. Essentially there's a reference right there to Bitterblooms with that image right there. And while I'm sure it has meaning within ASOIAF itself, it's rather cool to get a further wink that GRRM is leaving with that hint. And knowing that story now, I feel better able to look at that clue and its potential meaning.
What's interesting is the role it serves in Bitterblooms--as the only thing that lives during the middle of deepwinter, and it's specifically associated with Morgan and her spaceship she calls Morganhall (we find out later that they're flowers from another planet genetically designed to grow as they do in the cold, and Morgan claims to have planted and grown them).
Morgan rescues Shawn from a vampire (a gigantic bat-like creature who prowls in deepwinter and glides on top of the snow), and takes her into the spaceship, heals Shawn, and then proceeds to use the technology of the ship (which can't take off) to woo Shawn into having sex. She spins tales of siblings and planets far far away, and sights that Shawn can hardly imagine, and people who exist only on video recordings.
But soon Shawn wises up to the idea that everything Morgan has been telling her is a lie. A sweet, lovely lie, but a lie nonetheless. This is facilitated further by Shawn remembering the story old Tesenya tells her, which has been passed down as an oral tradition one of Shawn's ancestors had after encountering Morgan and Morganhall before many many years ago--and we're led to note that Morgan (due to the food she consumes) has lived for quite a long time and known many Cairns from Cairnhall--including a previous Shawn who was her lover. Shawn notices one day that Morgan enters with snow still on her boots, despite the view screen showing a trip through the stars, and the gig is up. Shawn, upset at having been lied to and angry that she's wasted time while her family must have been worried about her, demands to leave. Morgan, knowing that once the lie has been pierced, there's no forgetting anymore tries to convince her otherwise, but lets her leave ultimately. Shawn returns to find several of her family members dead or gone due to the troubles of deepwinter. She lives a long and healthy life, and when it's her time as an old woman to leave during the middle of deepwinter (and never return) she goes back to Morganhall, notices the name on the spaceship is Morgan Le Fay and realizes the extent of the lies that Morgan had spun. With Shawn noticing all the blue roses and then leaning in to the spaceship, calling Morgan's name and begging her to lie to her again.
Which now to come back to the context of ASOIAF, we have two associations of the blue winter rose. First and foremost is the wildling story that Ygritte (who could also count as another Shawn figure) tells Jon Snow. There are a number of overt similarities, but the associations which pop out as similar that seem to be the bare bones structure are:
Syggerik as "deceiver" = Morgan as "deceiver"; deceivers who use lies to keep a sexual partner with them, both deceivers adopt names which essentially mean "deceiver". Frostflowers = Winter Roses; in both cases the deceiver is heavily associated with blue roses which mark them distinctly Stark daughter returns after a year = Shawn returns after a year; in both cases this time in their respective "Celtic Underworld" lasts only a year, after which both the Stark daughter and Shawn return to their respective homes and families. Stark daughter kills herself when her son returns with her deceiver's head = Shawn "goes out to hunt in deepwinter" and ends up yearning for Morgan and her lies as a way to die
If we're to apply this to R+L=J, this casts Rhaegar into the role of deceiver, who used some type of pretty lie to sexually seduce Lyanna. Lyanna eventually wised up and wished to leave, but was unable to do so for any reason you want to insert here. Her being heavily pregnant with Jon is the presumption of R+L=J, so that can suit, but it can be just as likely that once the pretty lie was destroyed, Rhaegar left her to be held captive by
It's a key of the story that the sexual partner wises up to the lies and doing so stops them from working. This is likely where, if you want to presume it, Rhaegar and Lyanna split up--when Lyanna gets wise (most likely when she learns of her father's and brother's death; for Shawn it was remembering her family that helped her leave Morganhall).
Which I think should sum up most things about R+L=J. If it is true, it's a story about a deceiver to go with the pattern George appears to have associated in his head. A pretty lie that we tell ourselves over and over again and lose ourselves in for a time, but then leave when the illusion is broken. In the Bitterblooms story there's a further critique of such deceivers and lies with Tesenya's story, which seems designed to tell the subsequent generations of Cairns that the dreams and lies are not compatible with the life they lead and needs to survive. And no one can live for forever in a lie.
In a sense it's practically a metaphor for escapist literature in general. We the reader, like Shawn, fall for a deceiver and his or her's pretty lies which engage us to the point of tears (Shawn cries at some of the images she sees on the screens inside the spaceship). We lose ourselves in them and the fantastic but fake worlds they create--that we soon forget to live. Eventually we are taken out of the lie by some small detail the deceiver overlooked--and we go our separate ways. We live our lives, the harsh and cold but still fruitful reality, and as we approach death we think back to the happy lies with a certain nostalgia, wishing to be taken back into them--but unable to do so.
Another interesting thing to take from Bitterblooms, is there's a character named Jon, which seems to explain GRRM's mindset in naming ASOIAF's Jon, as Jon:
"...thinking back on old Jon and the terrible stories he used to tell the children when they gathered round Cairnhall's great hearth. There are worse things than vampires, he would tell them; and remembering, Shawn was suddenly a little girl again, sitting on the thick furs with her back to the fire, listening to Jon talk of ghosts and living shadows and cannibal families who lived in great castles built of bone."
" It was Tesenya, so very old, her face wrinkled, and she was talking in her tired voice so full of music, her lullaby voice, and all the children listened. Her stories had been different from Jon’s. His were always about fighting, wars and vendettas and monsters, chock-full with blood and knives and impassioned oaths sworn by a father’s corpse. Tesenya was quieter. She told of a group of travelers, six of family Alynne, who were lost in the wild one year during the season of freeze. They chanced upon a huge hall built all of metal, and the family within welcomed them with a great feast. So the travelers ate and drank, and just as they were wiping their lips to go, another banquet was served, and thus it went. The Alynnes stayed and stayed, for the food was richer and more delightful than any they had ever tasted, and the more they ate of it, the hungrier they grew. Besides, deepwinter had set in outside the metal hall. Finally, when thaw came many years later, others of family Alynne went searching for the six wanderers. They found them dead in the forest. They had put off their good warm furs and dressed in flimsies. Their steel had gone all to rust, and each of them had starved. For the name of the metal hall was Morganhall, Tesenya told the children, and the family who lived there was the family named Liar, whose food is empty stuff made of dreams and air."
Which is interesting as it's part of GRRM's critique against, well, patriarchy in that story (which features a lesbian relationship between a "Melisandre" and a "Brienne" type of figures, I should note). Old Tesenya tells no less a gruesome tale, but one which ultimately serves as a reminder that helps Shawn leave Morganhall and see it for what it is when the time comes. Old Jon's tales are full of war and further of war perpetuated and taken up by sons for their dead fathers' sakes--wars that do not ever truly end if the fighting continues on like that. Which makes me suspect that Jon wishing he were Azor Ahai in his dreams is NOT a good thing to be doing as far as the author's concerned--nor that Jon is a character who gets the best of Arthurian treatments.
I am not saying that ASOIAF and Bitterblooms exist in the same universe or anything else as reductive or simplistic as that. Instead I'm drawing parallels from an author's work to attempt to grasp what a symbol means to him in his mind. Blue roses from a Bitterblooms perspective it would seem are associated with something unnatural, a liar who tries to live a false life away from the harsh realities of life, and ultimately while it's a lovely thing, it is still built of lies and incompatible with "life as we know it."
And most important lie: blue roses grow in the North. (They only grow under glass). So a truth inversion: Lies grow when cultivated.
Thanks, you're the first one to nibble. I was ignored at Westeros.org (not the first time) and here I think everyone is getting ready for Christmas.
But yes, ever since I took two Shakespeare courses in undergrad with an old Emeritus professor, I've learned the benefit of analyzing an author's entire body of works in order to understand how their mind works. Often they have patterns and thoughts which are expressed similarly in many different incarnations. This is why there's always a reluctant Katherine or Kate who resists the idea of marriage in all of Shakespeare's works that feature one. Other associations such as Shakespeare's obsession with Time and one's ability to know when one's time is or the tragedy of having missed one's time are other themes that ebb and flow throughout Shakespeare's works.
Similarly I'm trying to understand Martin, and I was struck by this association of Blue roses with lies... sweet lies that we like to listen to, but cannot live for forever upon. Everyone else who tries to understand the blue rose symbol all want to bring outside ideas into the mix such as the Virgin Mary, etc. However we have here in Bitterblooms a clear example of GRRM using the symbol and he repeats the symbol's meaning in Bitterblooms in the Bael the Bard tale almost verbatim (if not with a bit more tragic ending for flair's sake).
So somehow the blue rose everyone loves to build up in R+L=J is associated in GRRM's with lies. Sweet lies that are lovely to listen and believe, but are things that you cannot live on.
In some ways Rhaegar could be said to be "living a lie" he lies to himself about being the "last dragon" or convincing himself that he's "the prince who was promised" so I have no trouble seeing him in the role of a deceiver--he tries to deceive himself from what we know.
But it also is an interesting thing to have associated with Lyanna in Ned's mind from a meta-context. Lyanna is crowned in lies, but she also clings to dead lies in his fever dream, and she's surrounded by a sky full of lies. It really adds to the feeling of Ned when he says that all the lies will end if we're supposed to--from GRRM's point of view, view the symbol of the blue rose as that of a lie.
I feel like there's more to tease out here, but it's getting late for me.
I will nibble too! Ok sometimes I am not the best at analysis. So do you think the lie is RLJ itself? or the romantic version of RLJ is a lie? and if RLJ is true it is not the love story many think it is?
Similarly I'm trying to understand Martin, and I was struck by this association of Blue roses with lies... sweet lies that we like to listen to, but cannot live for forever upon. Everyone else who tries to understand the blue rose symbol all want to bring outside ideas into the mix such as the Virgin Mary, etc. However we have here in Bitterblooms a clear example of GRRM using the symbol and he repeats the symbol's meaning in Bitterblooms in the Bael the Bard tale almost verbatim (if not with a bit more tragic ending for flair's sake).
So somehow the blue rose everyone loves to build up in R+L=J is associated in GRRM's with lies. Sweet lies that are lovely to listen and believe, but are things that you cannot live on.
I'll nibble too, and say it's not confined to blue roses.....if you go through the whole series, the above applies to the color blue as a whole. At first appearance it seems sweet and beautiful, but it's a mask, intended to disguise deceipt, corruption, lies.
I can't go through each mention in the series at this point (kids home for Christmas break, guuuhhhhhh), but think about the big throbbing heart in the HotU, the Undying themselves, Daario and fAegon's hair, the blades of the Others, etc. And of course, the blue rose crown and the slim sad girl wearing it and weeping tears of blood. I think we're going to see this play out with those having deep indigo eyes, too. Blue is deception; blue is decay; blue is death.
And I'll suggest that anyone interested in the potential role played by lies in Martin's imagination... go read his 1979 short story: The Cross and the Dragon. It's not long, and you can find the text online.
(It won't solve this little mystery for you, but it might leave you second-guessing... well, everything. LOL.)
"Anticlimax is, of course, the warp and way of things. Real life seldom structures a decent denouement." - Martin Silenus
I'll nibble too, and say it's not confined to blue roses.....if you go through the whole series, the above applies to the color blue as a whole. At first appearance it seems sweet and beautiful, but it's a mask, intended to disguise deceipt, corruption, lies.
I can't go through each mention in the series at this point (kids home for Christmas break, guuuhhhhhh), but think about the big throbbing heart in the HotU, the Undying themselves, Daario and fAegon's hair, the blades of the Others, etc. And of course, the blue rose crown and the slim sad girl wearing it and weeping tears of blood. I think we're going to see this play out with those having deep indigo eyes, too. Blue is deception; blue is decay; blue is death.
YUP!!
Those roses are left for the father, not the maid. To tell him Bael has outsmarted him. Then returns the maid and the babe--the Stark's only hope for an heir. The Stark in Winterfell only has two options: give up his line, or allow it to continue through Bael's son. And it all ends in a kinslaying, tower flinging, skin-flaying nightmare.
Blue is deceit and death. No question.
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Oscar Wilde.
I'll nibble too, and say it's not confined to blue roses.....if you go through the whole series, the above applies to the color blue as a whole. At first appearance it seems sweet and beautiful, but it's a mask, intended to disguise deceipt, corruption, lies.
I can't go through each mention in the series at this point (kids home for Christmas break, guuuhhhhhh), but think about the big throbbing heart in the HotU, the Undying themselves, Daario and fAegon's hair, the blades of the Others, etc. And of course, the blue rose crown and the slim sad girl wearing it and weeping tears of blood. I think we're going to see this play out with those having deep indigo eyes, too. Blue is deception; blue is decay; blue is death.
I agree with blue for deceit (and I'll throw in the blue-eyed king who casts no shadow, Mother of dragons, Slayer of lies). I beg to differ on death though- death is already represented by black & white (i.e. House of Black and White, Bran's Cave of Black and White, etc). Blue seems to be unnatural or artificially extended life. We see some examples: The Undying, who appear to have gained immortality by drinking shade of the evening and drawing the life force (souls?) from the living. The Others, and the blue-eyed wights, are examples of extended lifespan and necromancy (unnatural life). Lady Stoneheart had blue eyes before she died (and came back!). ok that one's a stretch. Throwing the Valyrians into the mix is an interesting idea. There is certainly something unnatural about them, with their propensity for madness and dragon-shaped stillborn children...
Which brings us to the blue roses. I love the idea of them being a symbol of trickery or deceit; perhaps that's why the Starks were extremely offended while the Martells were not upset enough for it to be mentioned by anyone. Which is weird, isn't it? First, why would the Starks be so upset? Naming a woman the QoLaB is a compliment; yes of course she was betrothed but it's not like Rhaegar invited her back to his tent or anything. Silly, hot-headed Starks...
The Martells, on the other hand, were insulted and humiliated in front of the whole realm. Rhaegar dragged his pregnant, frail wife all that way only to pass her by and give flowers to some other girl he had never met. We have seen the Martells- they are not the kind of people who take an insult lying down. They should have been furious (we know Oberyn, crazy, hot-headed Oberyn, was present at the tourney!), yet nothing about this is mentioned in any account of HH. Hmmmm.
If we look at the Bael parallel, the roses are given after the deceit takes place. So Rhaegar had already done something, and this is how he let either Lyanna or the other Starks know.
“In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger. All men must bow to him in the end, no matter if they worship the Seven or the Lord of Light, the Moon Mother or the Drowned God or the Great Shepherd. All mankind belongs to him... else somewhere in the world would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?”
I beg to differ on death though- death is already represented by black & white (i.e. House of Black and White, Bran's Cave of Black and White, etc). Blue seems to be unnatural or artificially extended life.
Very good point...so yeah, maybe blue is un-death? Or perhaps representing some kind of Mephistophilean selling/taking of the soul - the deal with the devil?
If we look at the Bael parallel, the roses are given after the deceit takes place. So Rhaegar had already done something, and this is how he let either Lyanna or the other Starks know.
I feel so stupid for not having noticed this before...but you are exactly right.
If we look at the Bael parallel, the roses are given after the deceit takes place. So Rhaegar had already done something, and this is how he let either Lyanna or the other Starks know.
Sticking with the Bael parallel... if I had to guess, I'd say he "plucked the rose" the night before.
“In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger. All men must bow to him in the end, no matter if they worship the Seven or the Lord of Light, the Moon Mother or the Drowned God or the Great Shepherd. All mankind belongs to him... else somewhere in the world would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?”
What is the non-RLJ explanation for Rhaegar crowning Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty?
Well, my mind is blown by the "lies" stuff WWS dug up, but I was going to originally say that women are crowned qolab at every tourney, but that doesn't mean every qolab is the true love of every victor.
Syggerik as "deceiver" = Morgan as "deceiver"; deceivers who use lies to keep a sexual partner with them, both deceivers adopt names which essentially mean "deceiver". Frostflowers = Winter Roses; in both cases the deceiver is heavily associated with blue roses which mark them distinctly Stark daughter returns after a year = Shawn returns after a year; in both cases this time in their respective "Celtic Underworld" lasts only a year, after which both the Stark daughter and Shawn return to their respective homes and families. Stark daughter kills herself when her son returns with her deceiver's head = Shawn "goes out to hunt in deepwinter" and ends up yearning for Morgan and her lies as a way to die
If we're to apply this to R+L=J, this casts Rhaegar into the role of deceiver, who used some type of pretty lie to sexually seduce Lyanna.
Funny, but as I was reading along, I was seeing Lyanna as the deceiver.
Can't forget the wolf blood comment. It was her wolf blood that led Lyanna to an early grave. If she were deceived by Rhaegar, that sounds simpler and less like wolf blood being the cause of death. But, it may well be that Ned never knew the true circumstances either.
Which is interesting as it's part of GRRM's critique against, well, patriarchy in that story (which features a lesbian relationship between a "Melisandre" and a "Brienne" type of figures, I should note). Old Tesenya tells no less a gruesome tale, but one which ultimately serves as a reminder that helps Shawn leave Morganhall and see it for what it is when the time comes. Old Jon's tales are full of war and further of war perpetuated and taken up by sons for their dead fathers' sakes--wars that do not ever truly end if the fighting continues on like that. Which makes me suspect that Jon wishing he were Azor Ahai in his dreams is NOT a good thing to be doing as far as the author's concerned--nor that Jon is a character who gets the best of Arthurian treatments.
I've been leaning this way a bit in my head-canon already. And it makes complete sense considering GRRM's anti-war past.
I am not saying that ASOIAF and Bitterblooms exist in the same universe or anything else as reductive or simplistic as that. Instead I'm drawing parallels from an author's work to attempt to grasp what a symbol means to him in his mind. Blue roses from a Bitterblooms perspective it would seem are associated with something unnatural, a liar who tries to live a false life away from the harsh realities of life, and ultimately while it's a lovely thing, it is still built of lies and incompatible with "life as we know it."
So somehow the blue rose everyone loves to build up in R+L=J is associated in GRRM's with lies. Sweet lies that are lovely to listen and believe, but are things that you cannot live on.
If we take our heads out of asoiaf, and think about roses, what color are they?
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
So a blue rose makes for the perfect trap. Unnatural, yet beautiful.
But it also is an interesting thing to have associated with Lyanna in Ned's mind from a meta-context. Lyanna is crowned in lies, but she also clings to dead lies in his fever dream, and she's surrounded by a sky full of lies. It really adds to the feeling of Ned when he says that all the lies will end if we're supposed to--from GRRM's point of view, view the symbol of the blue rose as that of a lie.
Very cool stuff.
Ned feels the sharp pointy ends beneath those lies.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."