Ok, I'm open to the idea, I'm just trying to understand. If Robert had sex with Lyanna, consensually or not, my point was that he'd forget about her or grow bored. But, he still has this fantasy about her in his head about how great she was.
So I guess what I'm trying to understand is how he still pined for her if he already "got" her. Does that make sense? Because if he slept with her and had no memory of it, that would make more sense to me, I think.
I'm going to go ahead and tag voice here, because I believe he was arguing for this theory to me in the past.
NB: I haven't fully decided on who I think Jon's parents are, just trying to understand the connections
I see what you are saying i don't think he forgot.I believe they were mutually intimate and the feelings he had for Lyanna was reciprocated.From the things he said which i will talk about in my essay it could be catergorized as him yearning for something he never had,or mourning for something he had and lost. The clues i found point to the latter.
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes"--Sherlock Holmes"
Up until a couple hours ago I was pretty sure it was Rhaegar, or if not him then Arthur Dayne. Something in the above posts just made Robert click...
I know what you mean, I change my mind every two days.
my fan favorite is Howland + Lyanna
“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
I've usually interpreted the fact that her gown was spattered with gore but she shows no wound (that I can remember) to mean that her death was connected with violence but not necessarily caused by it. She isn't wounded--but you have the pure white dress ruined. Her life, even her death--stained by violence. Like the rebellion.
And, to follow your idea of the blood traces responsibility--we have no indication in the dream that the blood is Lyanna's, right? Just that it and the gore are spattered on her gown. So--a sign of chaos and violence she helped to start. She doesn't have a wound but is spattered in blood--not sure the blood is supposed to be hers.
As for the bloody tears--I'm still wandering a bit on that. That's Ned's vision/dream, so the idea that she's calling to him or that his psyche feels guilt and thus concocts the dream--seems like it could more be about his own guilt at things not going as she wanted. He's made her promises--possibly about "making things right" (whatever that could mean)--maybe he's failing somehow--he thinks of broken promises in the crypts.
But I do think there's a distinction between Ned's dream and Theon's. Theon's could be explained by the events of the rebellion--especially without a visible wound. It's more general guilt towards the Starks (I think). So, Lyanna looks like the basics of the story he probably knows--girl with rose crown connected to war. Ned's dream/vision seems more personal, about his own feelings of failing her--we have him thinking about promises, etc. when he's not dreaming.
Yeah--that kind of wildness works. I've usually thought it was straight up stubbornness and unwillingness to conform--which is what Ned sees Arya do and thus is probably comparing that to Lyanna. And I agree on the parallels of mothers dying in childbirth for those characters. Am also wondering if that's one of the reasons he doesn't want to tell Jon about his mother too early . . . doesn't want the kid feeling guilty. But that's pure speculation.
I totally agree with you on the Lya it is something i proposed before in the RLJ thread ,that is her image in his dream being a symbolic representation of what Theon has heard about what happened with respect to her and her part in RR.The fact about the origin of the blood was the spoke for me when i brought it up on Heresy as well. We just don't know it could be external or it could directly related to her. Where it takes a different turn for me is Ned's dream of her weeping blood which in every motif and myth i know speaks of some form of injustice.And the crier is 99.99% a mother who was wronged by a lover,husband or family member.
Yes on Ned--the bleeding eyes definitely seems like Ned thinks she's asking for something over a wrong. Whether it's an actual wrong or only in Ned's head--not sure. But think her asking for something is the most likely interp.
And agree that Theon's context does not mention a wound. Without that, seems more likely the blood is external and not hers. But dream leaves a gap on that vs. defining one way or the other. It just doesn't say. So, still somewhat an option.
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.
Ok, I'm open to the idea, I'm just trying to understand. If Robert had sex with Lyanna, consensually or not, my point was that he'd forget about her or grow bored. But, he still has this fantasy about her in his head about how great she was.
So I guess what I'm trying to understand is how he still pined for her if he already "got" her. Does that make sense? Because if he slept with her and had no memory of it, that would make more sense to me, I think.
I'm going to go ahead and tag voice here, because I believe he was arguing for this theory to me in the past.
NB: I haven't fully decided on who I think Jon's parents are, just trying to understand the connections
I agree--Robert seems like a chase oriented soul vs. a "stand by your gal" type. He does keep wanting Cersei. But never idealizes her as he does Lyanna. I think the idealism is tied in part to her almost being his. Plus she brings up his sleeping around. If she's heard of that and dislikes it, and they don't live anywhere near each other--unless they slept together right after the betrothal, can't see when this would have happened. But playing with timelines is a sure way to give myself a migraine.
And agree on trying to find connections. I may lean towards Rhaegar, but not leaning too hard. Still trying figure it out. But back to the OP--do think baby was involved in her death. Which makes the baby sound like a hit man. Or a mob boss. Not what I meant.
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 totally agree with you on the Lya it is something i proposed before in the RLJ thread ,that is her image in his dream being a symbolic representation of what Theon has heard about what happened with respect to her and her part in RR.The fact about the origin of the blood was the spoke for me when i brought it up on Heresy as well. We just don't know it could be external or it could directly related to her. Where it takes a different turn for me is Ned's dream of her weeping blood which in every motif and myth i know speaks of some form of injustice.And the crier is 99.99% a mother who was wronged by a lover,husband or family member.
Yes on Ned--the bleeding eyes definitely seems like Ned thinks she's asking for something over a wrong. Whether it's an actual wrong or only in Ned's head--not sure. But think her asking for something is the most likely interp.
And agree that Theon's context does not mention a wound. Without that, seems more likely the blood is external and not hers. But dream leaves a gap on that vs. defining one way or the other. It just doesn't say. So, still somewhat an option.
Seconded!
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes"--Sherlock Holmes"
I think I got so off track with my observations last time that I forgot to state my current feeling related to the actual topic. I definitely think her death is somehow related to the baby. Only time will tell for sure if it's from actual childbirth and related complications or from protection of said baby. At least that's how I feel right now.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
And agree on trying to find connections. I may lean towards Rhaegar, but not leaning too hard. Still trying figure it out. But back to the OP--do think baby was involved in her death. Which makes the baby sound like a hit man. Or a mob boss. Not what I meant.
Lol! Death by baby was a favorite quote of mine that I saw over in RLJ one time. :::
“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
I'm going to go ahead and tag voice here, because I believe he was arguing for this theory to me in the past.
Yup. I think this was actually Martin's original plan for the secret of Jon's parentage. If all you had to go on was the 1993 letter and the first 13 chapters of the book, a very good case can be made for Jon being Robert's heir, hidden under the snow. Given what Cersei later does to Robert's bastards, the animosity evident at the start of the series between Ned and the Lannisters, and Bran's defenestration/knowledge of twincest, it makes sense for Ned to have hidden Jon away from the Lions.
But, I'm leaning pretty heavily towards ALJ/NAJ. Once you move past the 1993 letter, and the first 13 chapters, Jon needs to be a Dayne. It makes everything else click into place.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
Searching the series for 'tears of blood', and variants I could think of, turned up the following:
1. A Game of Thrones - Daenerys V "As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth, men without number, with arakhs shining in their hands like blades of razor grass. Fierce as a storm this prince will be. His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief. The bells in his hair will sing his coming, and the milk men in the stone tents will fear his name." The old woman trembled and looked at Dany almost as if she were afraid. "The prince is riding, and he shall be the stallion who mounts the world." Mourning the loss of husbands (and sons), also implies violent deaths.
2. A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV All of them were clad in black, she realized with a feeling of dread. Mourning clothes … The queen wore a high-collared black silk gown, with a hundred dark red rubies sewn into her bodice, covering her from neck to bosom. They were cut in the shape of teardrops, as if the queen were weeping blood. Apparently, tears of blood are a conventional symbol of deep mourning?
3a) A Storm of Swords - Arya IV "I dreamt I saw a shadow with a burning heart butchering a golden stag, aye. I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings. I dreamt of a roaring river and a woman that was a fish. Dead she drifted, with red tears on her cheeks, but when her eyes did open, oh, I woke from terror. All this I dreamt, and more. Do you have gifts for me, to pay me for my dreams?" 3b)A Storm of Swords - Catelyn VII Finally someone took the knife away from her. The tears burned like vinegar as they ran down her cheeks. Ten fierce ravens were raking her face with sharp talons and tearing off strips of flesh, leaving deep furrows that ran red with blood. She could taste it on her lips. It hurts so much, she thought. Our children, Ned, all our sweet babes. Rickon, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Robb . . . Robb . . . please, Ned, please, make it stop, make it stop hurting . . . The white tears and the red ones ran together until her face was torn and tattered, the face that Ned had loved. Predominantly, it sounds like unbearable grief over the loss of her family, especially the children. There's also betrayal involved (from Jaime's and Roose Bolton's to breaking guest right), and violence, and a subsequent need for vengeance.
4. A Storm of Swords - Samwell III All wildling villages looked much alike, though. A huge weirwood grew in the center of this one . . . but a white tree did not mean Whitetree, necessarily. Hadn't the weirwood at Whitetree been bigger than this one? Maybe he was remembering it wrong. The face carved into the bone pale trunk was long and sad; red tears of dried sap leaked from its eyes. Was that how it looked when we came north? Sam couldn't recall. ... He turned back to the weirwood and studied the carved face a moment. It is not the face we saw, he admitted to himself. The tree's not half as big as the one at Whitetree. The red eyes wept blood, and he didn't remember that either. ? I think there might be other 'weeping' weirwoods that none of my searches turned up.
5. A Dance with Dragons - Prologue The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. She was certainly greatly wronged and betrayed by Varanyr.
6. A Dance with Dragons - Jon III Val stood on the platform as still as if she had been carved of salt. She will not weep nor look away. Jon wondered what Ygritte would have done in her place. The women are the strong ones. He found himself thinking about Sam and Maester Aemon, about Gilly and the babe. She will curse me with her dying breath, but I saw no other way. Eastwatch reported savage storms upon the narrow sea. I meant to keep them safe. Did I feed them to the crabs instead? Last night he had dreamed of Sam drowning, of Ygritte dying with his arrow in her (it had not been his arrow, but in his dreams it always was), of Gilly weeping tears of blood. I forgot about this one! Jon forced Gilly to give up her son, who is now in danger of being sacrificed in some blood-and-fire ritual by Mel (at least Val seems to think he's in danger). Hmmmmm...
7. A Dance with Dragons - Jon VI Hear me now, Jon Snow. Nine crows flew into the white wood to find your foes for you. Three of them are dead. They have not died yet, but their death is out there waiting for them, and they ride to meet it. You sent them forth to be your eyes in the darkness, but they will be eyeless when they return to you. I have seen their pale dead faces in my flames. Empty sockets, weeping blood. (repeated in Mel's PoV) (and the guy who does this is called the Weeper)
And the Lyanna one (A Game of Thrones - Eddard XIII): He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he had walked a thousand times before. The Kings of Winter watched him pass with eyes of ice, and the direwolves at their feet turned their great stone heads and snarled. Last of all, he came to the tomb where his father slept, with Brandon and Lyanna beside him. "Promise me, Ned," Lyanna's statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.
Meaning to be determined. It could just be her sorrow over all the bloodshed that followed from ... whatever happened with her (would fit with the Virgin Mary symbology). It could be because of the injustice of what happened to her. However, in 1, 2, 3, 6, the bloody tears have to do with loss of loved ones, family in particular, children in 3 and 6. The potential parallel with Gilly (6) seems particularly relevant. I think it pretty strongly suggests that Lyanna lost a child, whether it died or was just taken from her.
Not too sure about the relevance of 4 and 7, and even less so about the following (but including it just in case):
A Clash of Kings - Jon VIII Even when Ghost's teeth closed savagely around the ranger's calf, somehow Qhorin kept his feet. But in that instant, as he twisted, the opening was there. Jon planted and pivoted. The ranger was leaning away, and for an instant it seemed that Jon's slash had not touched him. Then a string of red tears appeared across the big man's throat, bright as a ruby necklace, and the blood gushed out of him, and Qhorin Halfhand fell.
A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II "Tell the cow to stop her bleating," said Kraznys, without waiting for the translation. "This will do him no great harm. Men have no need of nipples, eunuchs even less so." The nipple hung by a thread of skin. He slashed, and sent it tumbling to the bricks, leaving behind a round red eye copiously weeping blood. The eunuch did not move, until Kraznys offered him back his sword, hilt first. "Here, I'm done with you."
A Storm of Swords - Arya XII When she came back, the archer turned his face up and she poured the water into his mouth. He gulped it down as fast as she could pour, and what he couldn't gulp ran down his cheeks into the brown blood that crusted his whiskers, until pale pink tears dangled from his beard. When the water was gone he clutched the helm and licked the steel. "Good," he said. "I wish it was wine, though. I wanted wine."
A Feast for Crows - Cersei IX "No. Please. She never . . . I sang, I only sang . . ." Lord Qyburn ran a hand up the Blue Bard's chest. "Does she take your nipples in her mouth during your love play?" He took one between his thumb and forefinger, and twisted. "Some men enjoy that. Their nipples are as sensitive as a woman's." The razor flashed, the singer shrieked. On his chest a wet red eye wept blood.
A Dance with Dragons - Reek II "My brothers. Not me. Lord Ramsay took me captive after Winterfell. He's sent me here to treat with you. Do you command here?" "Me?" The man lowered his knife and took a step backwards, almost stumbling over the corpse. "Not me, m'lord." His mail was rusted, his leathers rotting. On the back of one hand an open sore wept blood. "Ralf Kenning has the command. The captain said. I'm on the door, is all."
A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl After three hours of wine and words, the priests took their leave … all but the kindly man, the waif, and the one whose face bore the marks of plague. His cheeks were covered with weeping sores, and his hair had fallen out. Blood dripped from one nostril and crusted at the corners of both eyes. "Our brother would have words with you, child," the kindly man told her. "Sit, if you wish." She seated herself in a weirwood chair with a face of ebony. Bloody sores held no terror for her. She had been too long in the House of Black and White to be afraid of a false face.
Last Edit: Jul 25, 2015 12:34:26 GMT by nanother: messed up numbering
Meaning to be determined. It could just be her sorrow over all the bloodshed that followed from ... whatever happened with her (would fit with the Virgin Mary symbology). It could be because of the injustice of what happened to her. However, in 1, 2, 3, 6, the bloody tears have to do with loss of loved ones, family in particular, children in 3 and 6. The potential parallel with Gilly (6) seems particularly relevant. I think it pretty strongly suggests that Lyanna lost a child, whether it died or was just taken from her.
Okay, first up--thank you! Fabulous set up of the evidence.
Agree that it could be loss of child--either because child died or because she died. But am intrigued by the connection to the wierwoods and even to Mary. The idea of Jon as sacrifice. Especially since the bleeding eyes are in Ned's dream. Jon sent to the Wall. Don't know exactly what Ned promised Lyanna--but maybe that wasn't' part of the deal. Or he thinks it wasn't.
Still think Ned's dream has separate significance from Theon's re: Lyanna's death and meaning of bleeding eyes. Ned's seems to be about personal guilt to Lyanna. Theon's about guilt towards all Starks, including those he's just heard stories about. So, not sure if can conflate the two dreams to make one argument about a violent death for Lyanna.
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'm going to go ahead and tag voice here, because I believe he was arguing for this theory to me in the past.
Yup. I think this was actually Martin's original plan for the secret of Jon's parentage. If all you had to go on was the 1993 letter and the first 13 chapters of the book, a very good case can be made for Jon being Robert's heir, hidden under the snow. Given what Cersei later does to Robert's bastards, the animosity evident at the start of the series between Ned and the Lannisters, and Bran's defenestration/knowledge of twincest, it makes sense for Ned to have hidden Jon away from the Lions.
But, I'm leaning pretty heavily towards ALJ/NAJ. Once you move past the 1993 letter, and the first 13 chapters, Jon needs to be a Dayne. It makes everything else click into place.
I would say it still makes sense from a political,thematic and even magical point for Jon to be Robert's. I'll just touch on the political for now. The Baratheon dynasty is still in play. Though Tommen isn't Robert's by blood he is by name.Until that changes the Baratheon name still rules the realm.
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes"--Sherlock Holmes"
I would say it still makes sense from a political,thematic and even magical point for Jon to be Robert's. I'll just touch on the political for now. The Baratheon dynasty is still in play. Though Tommen isn't Robert's by blood he is by name.Until that changes the Baratheon name still rules the realm.
I quite agree, and this was my thinking as well when I brought it up in Heresy. Mayhaps RLJ is true after all, it's just another R
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
I would say it still makes sense from a political,thematic and even magical point for Jon to be Robert's. I'll just touch on the political for now. The Baratheon dynasty is still in play. Though Tommen isn't Robert's by blood he is by name.Until that changes the Baratheon name still rules the realm.
I quite agree, and this was my thinking as well when I brought it up in Heresy. Mayhaps RLJ is true after all, it's just another R
That would be ironic and funny.I did go with "R"+ L= J as the topic header but i tried to give the R a pair of horns to differentiate.I don't know i think it works if yuh squint.
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes"--Sherlock Holmes"