Knight of the Laughing Tree The Vote

True. I think this gets back to WWS's point that Meera clearly thinks it was their father, and tilts the story in that direction, while Jojen points out that she may be wrong.

So slight. Who is slight? Not to go all quiet wolf on you guys again, LOL, but is Ned ever described as being or having been slight?

Indeed he does.


I getcha, but I'm hesitant to go along. Ned seemed very unmagical by nature and decision. If there were something in the text to suggest he had such an ability, I could see it more.

Well, the dead direwolf could be seen as one piece. The pups are emblematic of the Stark children's warghood. And, like the children, the pups had a direwolf for a father.

Catelyn is surprised when she gets Ned's bones back that his bones are smaller than she remembers. Either she got the wrong bones (possible) or Ned had a presence about him which made up for being slighter.

We know a fully adult Ned is described as "stocky" however.

To get any more information we can look at Jon & Robb's adolescence to get an idea as to the growth of characters:

Robb is shorter than Ice at the beginning of AGOT until he has his growth spurt by the time ACOK starts. So we have it established that large growth spurts can occur in the Stark family. However Robb favors his Tully mother in appearance so it would likely be better to look to Hoster, Brynden & Edmure (whom Robb is compared as resembling a younger version of by Catelyn) to get a good idea about him.

We do however have a Stark-looking boy to compare with. One that is quite often labeled as looking like a younger version of Ned.

Jon for AGOT & ACOK has to strap Longclaw on his back because he's too short to fasten the bastard sword at his belt, and is described as slight and swift. In fact it isn't until sometime in ADWD that I noticed that Jon no longer had to do so--which means Jon had a later growth spurt than Robb. Add to this that Jon is often described as looking just like Ned did at his age, in addition to the whole Jon & Arya looking like traditional Starks aka Ned & Lyanna thing that fans squee over. And even in Jon isn't Ned's son, the fact that we can get a mini-Lyanna from Ned and a mini-Ned from Lyanna (to just use the most popular fan theory to avoid controversy and debate for the moment) and a mini-Edmure from Catelyn shows just how children more often reflect their uncles and aunts than they do their parents (in fact the only time do children strongly resemble their parents I've noticed is when there's incest in the family), and so even if Jon isn't Ned's son, as long as he's Lyanna's he can still be a "mini-Ned" in GRRM's universe.

Clearly Starks start out as sleight in adolescence and likely grow to be stocky once they get older, if we accept that a character like Jon transforms into a character like Ned. This isn't at all unacceptable.

The only question that remains IMO is if Ned, at 18/19, hasn't yet fully "filled out" yet to his adult stockiness or not. From having attended college (and university) and watched the undergraduate males as adolescent looking Freshmen who enter as lithe and sleight looking teenagers, and leave as stocky & filled out looking young adults--this kind of transformation occurring isn't just acceptable it's most likely rather normal for the age, and it's something that Eddard would be "undergoing" at the time.

So the old argument that "Ned hadn't finished growing/filling out" into his stocky build is a plausible one given what we have from observing how Robb & Jon have grown--most especially Jon. We also can take into consideration from Catelyn taking stock of Eddard's bones that his stocky adult build, plus whatever "presence" he brought to a room, covered a much smaller frame than Catelyn realized.

We also got the note from Catelyn that Ned was smaller than Brandon IIRC, but that's just popping into my head now as I finished typing this.

ETA:

And I need to finish reading a thread before responding (it's a bad habit that I never do), because I was ninja'd by Voice's own thoughts.

Because that wasn't the final day? The joust lasted 5 days, not 3.



There being 2 champions on the start of the 3rd day doesn't mean that there couldn't have been 5 champions on the 5th day. With the KOTLT disappearing there were 3 spots that Whent or Aerys could have re-opened given that the KOTLT forfeited its spot in the tourney when they never reappeared.



Ned says "the day belonged to Rhaegar Targaryen" before listing those 4 men who fell before Rhaegar. It's clearly a list of the men Rhaegar faced in one day. If Ned meant that Rhaegar beat those 4 men throughout the 5 days of jousting, he would have just said "the tourney belonged to Rhaegar Targaryen" or something. Instead he narrows it done to "the day". It's one single day where Rhaegar beats Brandon, Bronze Yohn, Arthur Dayne, and Barristan. And this is supported by the fact that this can't be the list of every notable foe Rhaegar faced as Barristan says that Rhaegar unhorsed "them all" when saying who Rhaegar's competition were, the World Book details 2-3 KG that Rhaegar defeated that aren't in this list, and the World Book also says that he defeated all. He has to have faced more than 4 people, so this list, with Ned's qualification that it's "the day" is a list of the jousting Rhaegar did on the final day

And we can be sure that Rhaegar wasn't a champion by the 3rd day seeing as



He didn't compete the third day. If he was one of the two champions who appeared on the 3rd day, then he had to have forfeited it because he was commanded to go find the KOTLT that day. Rhaegar's championship is therefore post 3rd day otherwise there shouldn't be any possible way that he forfeited, then somehow was able to compete again to make it to the finals 2 days later.

And it also stands to reason that Rhaegar wasn't even competing in the tournament yet by the 3rd day if Aerys is giving him royal missions on the 3rd day. Aerys came to Harrenhal to keep an eye on Rhaegar as he feared Rhaegar was attempting to throw a Great Council against him. He's not just going to command Rhaegar off the field, when the tournament ensures that Rhaegar can't meet with anybody if he's too busy jousting on the field. The tournament is the perfect excuse to ensure that Rhaegar can't have his GC and remains under Aerys eye. Sending him to deal with the KOTLT only makes sense if Rhaegar hadn't yet taken the field and already had his freedom as otherwise Aerys is giving up ensuring that Rhaegar sticks to the lists.