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Eddard Stark
When it comes to the topic of Ned, discussions in the audience hover around the question of whether or not his approach to politics was bad. It’s a discussion that can be heard from characters in the story, too, leaving no question about whether it’s a discussion worth having.
“You wear your honor like a suit of armor, Stark. You think it keeps you safe, but all it does is weigh you down and make it hard for you to move. Look at you now. You know why you summoned me here. You know what you want to ask me to do. You know it has to be done … but it’s not honorable, so the words stick in your throat.” (—Petyr to Ned, AGOT Eddard XIII)
Some of the most commonly disputed decisions Ned made include his decision to leave Winterfell and become the Hand of the King, his decision to trust Littlefinger, his decision to send Beric Dondarrion instead of Loras Tyrell to deliver Gregor Clegane to justice, and his managing of Cersei Lannister during the critical time before Robert’s death.
GrayArea
2020
I’m sorry. Ned Stark was politically stupid as fuck. He did not understand the Game of Thrones. He used honor as his shield. None of his enemies had honor. He needed informers, he needed to put his own men in positions of power. He was a baby lamb led to slaughter.
His uncle skills are the best I have seen tho. Not up for debate. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAW3SIMYnUQ
u/abrigorber
41 points 2022
(…) people who say this was a stupid act completely ignore Ned’s goals. If he was aiming to gather further power to himself or he wanted to destroy the Lannisters – sure, then it was an idiot move. But these weren’t Ned’s goals – Ned was trying to protect Cersei’s children, and telling Cersei what he knew was the best way to do that. [[1](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/uycb84/comment/ia4tvwc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)%5D
Some readers come to Ned’s defense by pointing out that Ned was acting in accordance with some higher principle or another. Usually that principle is honor, justice, the protection of children, women or family. They’re values that Ned tried to teach to his children, and some passages in A Song of Ice and Fire frame the dilemmas that Ned’s children encounter in the context of what Ned would do.
“Which force would you command?”
“The horse,” he answered at once. Again like his father; Ned would always take the more dangerous task himself. (—Catelyn and Robb, AGOT Catelyn VIII)
With the Stark children being central to the story, some readers have a strong sense that the Stark family’s successes or failures indicate how Ned’s values are serving his children, family and friends after his death, and in which direction the thematic winds of A Song of Ice and Fire are blowing.
A common critique of Ned is that he deprived his daughters of certain kinds of education simply because they’re girls.
Gray: They got a shitty education.
Becks: Yeah. But, one would assume, you know obviously we don’t know too much, but Robb steps into the political situation pretty seamlessly despite his age, so, obviousl-
Gray: But they were training him to be Lord of Winterfell one day so-
Becks: Exactly. Exactly.
Gray: So he’s been under his dad, like in his dad’s shadow. You know because Bran and Robb, they go with Ned to do the beheading of-
Becks: Right.
Gray: And Jon goes as well. So they’ve been witness to it. They’ve seen what goes down. But Sansa and Arya are doing needlework and lady classes, so, their training and upbringing is a little different even though they still live in the same castle, just ’cause one has a vagina and the others don’t.
Becks: Well, and that’s like, you know, a huge failure. I feel like maybe a little bit more-so with Sansa, especially after Sansa is betrothed to Joffrey. But then again, Bran fell out the window pretty soon after that. But even Ned should have done something. Like when you meet Margaery, Margaery obviously had that education that Sansa didn’t have. [1]https://youtu.be/k7qPAPMJFvU?t=951
Swordfighting, military strategy, leadership skills, hunting, political strategy, matters of justice and corporal punishment are some of the things that Ned taught to his sons but not to his daughters, with an exception being that Ned did eventually hire Syrio Forel to train Arya at swordfighting.
Though Sansa never expresses interest in swordfighting, maybe skill with swords would have served Sansa as well as it serves Arya. Likewise, maybe the reason Sansa likes traditionally feminine activities is that she was conditioned that way by her parents and society. Had Sansa been more free to develop her own interests at a younger age, maybe she would have found as much enjoyment in swordfighting as Arya does.
On the other hand, maybe not. It’s possible that Ned’s critics in the audience underestimate the naturalness of the inclinations exhibited in Sansa, or the unnaturalness of the inclinations exhibited in Arya, or both.
The issue of gender roles is referenced directly from time to time in A Song of Ice and Fire, such as when some of Robb’s guards object to Dacey Mormont, a six-foot-tall woman who’s handy with a morningstar.
When he’d forced Catelyn to accept her protectors, she had insisted that he be guarded as well, and the lords bannermen had agreed. Many of their sons had clamored for the honor of riding with the Young Wolf, as they had taken to calling him. Torrhen Karstark and his brother Eddard were among his thirty, and Patrek Mallister, Smalljon Umber, Daryn Hornwood, Theon Greyjoy, no less than five of Walder Frey’s vast brood, along with older men like Ser Wendel Manderly and Robin Flint. One of his companions was even a woman: Dacey Mormont, Lady Maege’s eldest daughter and heir to Bear Island, a lanky six-footer who had been given a morningstar at an age when most girls were given dolls. Some of the other lords muttered about that, but Catelyn would not listen to their complaints. “This is not about the honor of your houses,” she told them. “This is about keeping my son alive and whole.” (—Thoughts of Catelyn, AGOT Catelyn X)
Some of the men complained that Dacey’s presence beside them in Robb’s guard dishonored their houses. Since Dacey is tall and has been practicing with a morningstar from a young age, she must be a competent enough fighter to protect Robb. So I tend to agree with Catelyn that the mens’ attitudes about gender roles and honor are interfering with the more important issue at hand — Robb’s protection.
These attitudes of the men in Robb’s guard seem to provide greater insight into Ned’s sense of honor, because they’re attitudes that most men in the setting share and Ned is a man. Since Ned was reluctant to permit Arya to train at combat, it seems likely that, like the men in Robb’s guard, Ned would have disapproved of Dacey Mormont’s presence in the guard, too. Perhaps Ned would have felt dishonored by having to share the role with a woman.
In this way, Ned’s sense of honor and the senses of honor of most of the noble men in Westeros may be revealed to be founded upon mens’ feelings of superiority over women. Thus, a woman’s presence in a traditionally masculine role discomforts men like Ned by threatening his power over women.
If Ned truly feels threatened by women being empowered with traditionally masculine skills and roles, then the passage about Dacey Mormont reveals that Ned’s neglect to teach Arya and Sansa those things was motivated by a compulsion to keep women powerless, even when those women are his own daughters.
And if Ned feels the compulsion to keep women powerless even when those women are children . . . the implications of that for the deeper psychology of Ned would be truly disturbing indeed.
This tension in the competing interpretations of Ned’s honor echoes the tensions in the competing interpretations of The Maiden of the Tree song. Does Forest Love feel a sense of entitlement to Forest Lass the same way Ned feels a sense of entitlement to having power over women? Or are Arya and Dacey deriving feelings of vengeful satisfaction from turning the tables of tradition against men like Forest Lass did against Forest Love? Whatever the case, the takeaway for us is roughly the same either way:
Discussions about Ned hover at a tension between Ned’s honor is good and Ned’s honor is foolish.
Promise Me, Ned
Out of all the sources of information about A Song of Ice and Fire’s central mysteries, there can be no question that, for the reader, Eddard Stark’s POV is the final authority: Ned was closely involved in the Knight of the Laughing Tree situation; He was friends with the crannogman Howland Reed; He knew Lyanna better than any other POV character available did; He led Robert’s Rebellion; He led the battle at the Tower of Joy; and he brought Jon Snow to Winterfell. Whatever the answers to these central mysteries are, they absolutely must make complete sense in the context of every single one of Ned’s thoughts, dreams and words surrounding them. So Ned’s thoughts, dreams and words are the gold standard by which any answer or set of answers to the central mysteries must be measured, because Ned is the only POV character available who knew approximately everything we wish to know.
That said, because of the relationship between Ned’s knowledge and the author’s desire to make the central mysteries difficult and long-lasting, Ned’s thoughts, dreams and words accommodate a great amount of conflict in interpretation. That makes them some of the most challenging codes in the story to crack. How exciting!
Throughout Ned’s chapters in A Game of Thrones, memories surface of an unspecified promise or promises that Lyanna asked Ned to make. Let’s look at three of those passages.
1 – Lyanna Was… Fond Of Flowers
In this scene, Robert and Ned are in the Winterfell crypts visiting the grave and statue of Lyanna Stark.
“She was a Stark of Winterfell,” Ned said quietly. “This is her place.”
“She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean.”
“I was with her when she died,” Ned reminded the king. “She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father.” He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes. Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. After that he remembered nothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent with grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her hand from his. Ned could recall none of it. “I bring her flowers when I can,” he said. “Lyanna was . . . fond of flowers.” (—Ned and Robert, AGOT Eddard I)
Ned implies that Lyanna asked to be buried in the Winterfell crypt. So ‘Bury me in the Winterfell crypt’ is a reasonable answer to the question of what the promise was about. Still, the intensely dramatic memories and imagery of blood, roses, fear and death make me think that answer is not good enough by itself, and they give me a lingering sense that there’s more to learn about what happened to Lyanna.
The room smells of blood and roses. The rose petals spilling from her palm shows me that the roses are really there, and so is the smell, so that gives me good reason not to stray from a literal reading of them.
Ned’s line “They had found him holding her body” tells me that Howland Reed was not the only other person in the scene with Ned and Lyanna. So there are questions like: ‘How many other people were there besides Ned, Lyanna and Howland? And who were they? And why were they there?’ This is particularly strange considering that Ned’s Tower of Joy dream depicts Ned and Howland as the only survivors of the Tower of Joy battle. But considering that Lyanna has been at the Tower of Joy for several months, it makes sense that there must be some servants to take care of basic things like cooking food, washing clothes and making baths.
Ned’s thoughts here also tell me that Lyanna had a fever. It seems safe to suppose that the blood in the scene came from Lyanna, because Lyanna is dying. But maybe it didn’t, so I’ll keep an open mind about the blood. If the blood in the scene came from Lyanna, then maybe blood loss is what caused her fever. But maybe it didn’t, so I’ll keep an open mind about the fever, too.
The dead black rose petals match symbolically with the air of death in the scene, and that symbolic meaning is good enough to explain why they’re black. They’re black because the author wanted to set a morbid mood. But it might be worth considering what practical meanings the black rose petals can have. Assuming that they weren’t black when they were brought here, they show me that they’ve been here for weeks or more. It also suggests a close association between death and whatever the rose petals represent. And since Lyanna was fond of flowers, it can be interpreted that flowers represent Lyanna, and so the association between death and flowers is Lyanna’s death.
Since the flowers are dead and black, their original color is unknown to the reader yet. But Ned’s Tower of Joy dream suggests that they were blue.
As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. “Eddard!” she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death. (AGOT Eddard X)
The rose petals being in Lyanna’s palm suggests that they’re important to her in some way. Ned’s last line suggests a simple reason — that Lyanna was fond of flowers — but it doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to explain why Lyanna was clutching them in her dying moments. So there’s a lingering expectation that I’ll find out a better reason.
That brings me to Ned’s hesitation in the line “Lyanna was . . . fond of flowers.” Throughout A Song of Ice and Fire, these dots (also known as an ellipses) notates something missing or left unsaid. So the question is, what was it? What was happening in Ned’s mind to cause his hesitation? Was he struggling to find the right word? Was he going to say something different? Is there some context Ned has that I don’t have?
Well, the word “fond” has a certain significance in A Song of Ice and Fire. But for now, the takeaway is that There is a hidden significance in the association between Lyanna and flowers.
2 – As Lyanna Had Pleaded Once
At Littlefinger’s brothel in King’s Landing, Ned, Littlefinger and Catelyn met in secret to talk about the attempted murder of Bran involving a catspaw at Winterfell.
“Why should Tyrion Lannister want Bran dead? The boy has never done him harm.”
“Do you Starks have nought but snow between your ears?” Littlefinger asked. “The Imp would never have acted alone.”
Ned rose and paced the length of the room. “If the queen had a role in this or, gods forbid, the king himself … no, I will not believe that.” Yet even as he said the words, he remembered that chill morning on the barrowlands, and Robert’s talk of sending hired knives after the Targaryen princess. He remembered Rhaegar’s infant son, the red ruin of his skull, and the way the king had turned away, as he had turned away in Darry’s audience hall not so long ago. He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once. (—Ned and Petyr, AGOT Eddard IV)
Littlefinger places suspicion on House Lannister, and Ned considers if Robert had a role in the attack on Bran. Ned doesn’t believe Robert would do that because Robert is his close friend. But then Ned recalls three times when Robert disappointed him. One of those times reminded him of Lyanna.
Ned is remembering the recent events at the Trident, where Nymeria bit Prince Joffrey and Ned slew Sansa’s direwolf Lady on the orders of Queen Cersei and King Robert. The drama took place in House Darry’s audience hall, where Ned challenged Robert to carry out his own sentence.
“Do it yourself then, Robert,” he said in a voice cold and sharp as steel. “At least have the courage to do it yourself.”
Robert looked at Ned with flat, dead eyes and left without a word, his footsteps heavy as lead. Silence filled the hall. (AGOT Eddard III)
Ned’s challenge derives from the Stark values about justice — that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. It’s a principle that helps relegate harsh punishments such as execution to a last resort by preventing degrees of separation from forming between the passing of the sentence and the executing of it.
Much of the injustice of the situation in Darry’s hall has to do with the fact that the direwolf that is sentenced to die is not the direwolf that bit Joffrey. Worse, insofar as executing a direwolf might be a punishment for the direwolf’s owner, the girl who is being punished is not the offending direwolf’s owner, either. These two facts together prove that Cersei’s and Robert’s sentencing has nothing to do with making the world a better place (what we might call literal justice) and everything to do with making Cersei feel good (what we might call symbolic justice or revenge.) Robert demonstrates his awareness that the sentencing is not about literal justice when he rationalizes how killing Lady will make the world a better place:
“A direwolf is a savage beast. Sooner or later it would have turned on your girl the same way the other did on my son. Get her a dog, she’ll be happier for it.”
While it may be true that the direwolf would have turned on Sansa some day, this is not Robert’s or Cersei’s real reason for executing Lady. Robert adds this reason afterward because it’s grounded in something literal, and Robert is trying to evade his own conscientious objection to the fact that this instance of so-called justice is entirely symbolic.
When Ned tells Robert to at least have the courage to do it himself, Ned is framing the situation as an issue of courage versus cowardice. By doing so, he’s hanging the criticism of cowardice over Robert, contingent upon Robert following through with his order for Ilyn Payne to execute Lady, and he’s compelling Robert to execute Lady himself. This framing and compulsion from Ned indicates that Ned still has faith that Robert’s conscience will prevent him from executing Lady in the moment that Robert has to swing the sword.
I don’t suppose that Ned believes Robert has any fear about killing a direwolf in general. The source of Robert’s cowardice in the situation is one that Ned recognizes from he and Robert’s disagreement about trusting the Lannisters. Since Tywin Lannister has been funding Robert’s exhorbitant reign with Lannister gold, the crown is in massive debt to House Lannister and still relying upon Lannister gold, and that puts Robert in a position where he’s afraid to offend Lannisters.
“I have more concern for my nephew’s welfare than I do for Lannister pride,” Ned declared.
“That is because you do not sleep with a Lannister.” Robert laughed, the sound rattling among the tombs and bouncing from the vaulted ceiling. (—Ned and Robert, AGOT Eddard I)
So Robert’s cowardice is a weary kind of cowardice about avoiding conflict. He doesn’t want to deal with the tedious matters and quarrels that characterize the everyday life and responsibilities of living with Lannisters and being the king, especially when appeasing Cersei comes as cheaply as killing an animal.
Robert’s silent exit in response to the challenge to his courage contrasts so severely with his hot-headed and short-tempered nature as seen elsewhere that I’m left with the strong impression that Ned was right about Robert, and Robert knows it. And that’s why Robert walked away.
During the Lady trial, Sansa pleaded for Lady’s life.
That was when Sansa finally seemed to comprehend. Her eyes were frightened as they went to her father. “He doesn’t mean Lady, does he?” She saw the truth on his face. “No,” she said. “No, not Lady, Lady didn’t bite anybody, she’s good . . . ”
“Lady wasn’t there,” Arya shouted angrily. “You leave her alone!”
“Stop them,” Sansa pleaded, “don’t let them do it, please, please, it wasn’t Lady, it was Nymeria, Arya did it, you can’t, it wasn’t Lady, don’t let them hurt Lady, I’ll make her be good, I promise, I promise . . . ” She started to cry.
All Ned could do was take her in his arms and hold her while she wept. He looked across the room at Robert. His old friend, closer than any brother. “Please, Robert. For the love you bear me. For the love you bore my sister. Please.”
The king looked at them for a long moment, then turned his eyes on his wife. “Damn you, Cersei,” he said with loathing. (AGOT Eddard III)
Ned pleaded for Lady’s life, too, calling upon Robert’s love for him and Lyanna. That brings me back to Ned’s thoughts in the first passage.
He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once. (AGOT Eddard IV)
Ned connected Sansa’s pleading in the Lady incident to Lyanna’s pleading in the Tower of Joy incident. But why? Such a distant connection must have been triggered by some noteworthy commonality between the two incidents. So the question I’m left with is: ‘What is the commonality between Sansa’s pleading and Lyanna’s pleading?’
The obvious answer is “pleading.” But if that’s what triggered the connection in Ned’s mind, then why was Ned reminded of Lyanna’s pleading instead of Robb’s pleading? Robb pleaded with Ned to allow the Stark kids to keep the direwolf pups. Likewise, why was Ned reminded of Lyanna’s pleading instead of Catelyn’s pleading? Catelyn pleaded for Ned not to go to Winterfell after Bran fell. So the commonality being pleading is a shallow answer. It seems like the pleadings must be similar in a more significant way in order to have evoked the memory.
The takeaway is: There is a hidden commonality between Sansa’s and Lyanna’s pleading.
3 – The Price He’d Paid To Keep Them
In this passage, Ned’s investigation of Jon Arryn’s murder has brought him to Chataya’s brothel so that he can see one of King Robert’s bastards, a baby girl named Barra with black hair.
“I named her Barra,” she said as the child nursed. “She looks so like him, does she not, milord? She has his nose, and his hair . . . ”
“She does.” Eddard Stark had touched the baby’s fine, dark hair. It flowed through his fingers like black silk. Robert’s firstborn had had the same fine hair, he seemed to recall.
“Tell him that when you see him, milord, as it … as it please you. Tell him how beautiful she is.”
“I will,” Ned had promised her. That was his curse. Robert would swear undying love and forget them before evenfall, but Ned Stark kept his vows. He thought of the promises he’d made Lyanna as she lay dying, and the price he’d paid to keep them.
“And tell him I’ve not been with no one else. I swear it, milord, by the old gods and new. Chataya said I could have half a year, for the baby, and for hoping he’d come back. So you’ll tell him I’m waiting, won’t you? I don’t want no jewels or nothing, just him. He was always good to me, truly.”
She had smiled then, a smile so tremulous and sweet that it cut the heart out of him. Riding through the rainy night, Ned saw Jon Snow’s face in front of him, so like a younger version of his own. If the gods frowned so on bastards, he thought dully, why did they fill men with such lusts? (AGOT Eddard IX)
The baby looks a lot like Robert, even though the mother has red hair and freckles.
Ned thinks about the difference between the way he and Robert treat their promises. Robert makes promises haphazardly and he forgets them easily. Ned makes promises cautiously and he remembers to keep them.
One curious addition to the mystery that this passage makes is that the word “promises” tells me that Ned made more than one promise to Lyanna. I can be fairly confident from ‘Lyanna Was… Fond Of Flowers’ that one of the promises was to bury Lyanna in the Winterfell crypt. But what were the other promises?
Soon after Ned thinks about the promises he made to Lyanna, he thinks about Jon Snow. He thinks that Jon looks like a younger version of himself, and he wonders bitterly why the gods fill men with extra-marital lusts if they disapprove of bastards.
So one implication in this passage could be that another of the promises Ned made to Lyanna was about Jon Snow. That suggests that Jon is Lyanna’s son.
If Jon is the son of Lyanna and Rhaegar, then it makes sense that Jon’s dying mother would plead for Ned to promise to care for her baby and to protect him from Robert by claiming the baby as his own bastard. In that case, the sad irony of the situation is that, if Rhaegar and Lyanna married in secret, then Jon Snow is a trueborn child after all, who has to suffer the stigma against bastards only because he’s a Targaryen and Robert can’t let go of a grudge.
This interpretation resonates with some of the audience’s feelings about Robert.
u/DaemonT
25 points 2021
“Sooner or later there would always come a night when he would drink too much and want to claim his rights. What shamed him in the light of day gave him pleasure in the darkness.” (—Thoughts of Cersei, AFFC Cersei VII)
Now, dear Robert stans if, after this obvious proof of abuse, you still stand by your boy, I would like to know why. What makes rape and abuse palatable in the World of Ice and Fire?
Robert is introduced to the readers through the point-of-view of Ned. And since Ned and Robert are close friends, my initial tendency is to like Robert, too. But as A Game of Thrones progresses and the extent of Robert’s blunders as a king, husband, father and friend all come to light, Cersei’s thoughts three books later about Robert’s treatment of her in the bed chamber come across like a brand new low on an actively and retroactively downward character arc for Robert — the message being: ‘Look how many allowances readers are willing to make for the villainy of a character who made a good first impression with them.’ Or perhaps ‘Look how many allowances readers are willing to make for the villainy of a manly man.’
In that way, a thematic message of the character Robert Baratheon is echoed in R+L=J. The thinking goes that, upon the explicit reveal to the reader that R+L=J, Robert’s inability to let go of his grudge against Targaryens will be but yet another brand new low on Robert’s downward arc, his villainy this time having taken its toll on Jon, Ned and the whole Stark family.
So, since Jon having to suffer the stigma against bastards unduly is worse than Jon having to suffer it duly, Jon’s parents having married before conceiving him would do a better job of continuing the downward trend of Robert’s arc. This boost in meaning and its alignment with a thematic takeaway of Robert Baratheon lends credibility to the secret marriage version of R+L=J, because if Rhaegar and Lyanna did not marry, then Jon would truly be a bastard, and then the sad irony in Ned’s passage wouldn’t exist to help explain the price Ned paid to keep his promises and Ned’s bitter thoughts about the gods. Because, though a bastard having to suffer the bastard stigma is still sad, it is not ironic. The passage being infused with sadness plus irony would load it with more meaning than sadness without irony. And we’re trying to find out which interpretation of Jon’s parentage loads the passage with the most meaning.
To be thorough, some readers note that the sad irony works just as well if Jon Snow’s parents were not Rhaegar and Lyanna, but a different highborn woman with either Brandon Stark or Ned Stark, who also married. In those cases, Jon would still be a trueborn child who has to suffer the stigma against bastards unduly, but this time because he’s a trueborn Stark rather than a Targaryen. As in the R+L=J interpretation, the prices Ned paid to keep his promises in the B+A=J and N+A=J interpretations were much the same: Ned had to lie to Catelyn, Jon, his children and allow the dysfunctions from those lies to persist in his family in order to protect House Stark and the north from the future risk of claim disputes over Winterfell. In this passage, as in the Five Trueborn Children passage from chapter four of Forest Love and Forest Lass, the extra meaning in it is dependent upon Jon being trueborn and therefore Jon’s parents having married before conceiving him, regardless of which highborn couple they were.
That said, it’s possible that Jon suffering the stigma against bastards unduly is not a source of irony or the cause of Ned’s bitterness in this passage. Ned could be thinking about Jon Snow simply because his mind is on bastards and Jon is a bastard. Likewise, Ned’s bitterness may be about the unfairness of the stigma, such that he’s lamenting the condition of society or existence. In that interpretation, Jon is interchangeable with any other bastard, and that’s why Ned’s encounter with Robert’s bastard Barra caused him to think of Jon.
To conclude this passage, there’s a question in it about the reason why Ned thought of Jon. The answer that infuses the passage with the most meaning is that Jon is Lyanna’s and Rhaegar’s trueborn son, who Ned must pretend is his own bastard in order to protect Jon from Robert. The answer that infuses the passage with the second-most meaning is that Jon is Lyanna’s and Rhaegar’s bastard son.
So, even when we confine the possibilities of Jon’s parentage to Rhaegar and Lyanna, the married version of R+L=J infuses this passage with more meaning than the unmarried version, by aligning with a theme of Robert. For the second time in Forest Love and Forest Lass, the idea that Jon’s parents were a highborn man and woman who married has rendered more resilient than even the idea that Jon’s parents are Rhaegar and Lyanna. Rhaegar and Lyanna are both highborn, so the two ideas are not mutually exclusive and it doesn’t necessarily mean that Rhaegar and Lyanna are not Jon Snow’s parents. Nevertheless, it seems noteworthy that when the ideas are distinguished and treated as separate possibilities, they perform differently when infusing some of A Song of Ice and Fire’s most context-sensitive passages with meaning.
The Tower of Joy
And Now It Begins
The longest and most detailed account of the events at the Tower of Joy at the end of Robert’s Rebellion is provided to the reader in the form of Ned’s fever dream in the chapter AGOT Eddard X. With the events being portrayed in a dream, deriving from a memory fifteen years old, and the dreamer being sick, medicated and recovering from a grievous leg wound at the time, the reliability of the events could hardly be more in question. Still, it being a product of the mind that knows approximately everything I wish to know makes it, in many ways, king over all other accounts of the Tower of Joy. For the most part, the difficulty with it is in the subtext. Let’s dig in!
He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood.
In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life. Proud Martyn Cassel, Jory’s father; faithful Theo Wull; Ethan Glover, who had been Brandon’s squire; Ser Mark Ryswell, soft of speech and gentle of heart; the crannogman, Howland Reed; Lord Dustin on his great red stallion. Ned had known their faces as well as he knew his own once, but the years leech at a man’s memories, even those he has vowed never to forget. In the dream they were only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist.
They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three. They waited before the round tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now. 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 whiteenameled 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.
“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.
“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.”
“I came down on Storm’s End to lift the siege,” Ned told them, “and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them.”
“Our knees do not bend easily,” said Ser Arthur Dayne.
“Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him.”
“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.
Ned’s wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.
“And now it begins,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.
“No,” Ned said with sadness in his voice. “Now it ends.” As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. “Eddard!” she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.
“Lord Eddard,” Lyanna called again.
“I promise,” he whispered. “Lya, I promise . . . ”
“Lord Eddard,” a man echoed from the dark.
Groaning, Eddard Stark opened his eyes. Moonlight streamed through the tall windows of the Tower of the Hand.
“Lord Eddard?” A shadow stood over the bed.
“How . . . how long?” The sheets were tangled, his leg splinted and plastered. A dull throb of pain shot up his side.
“Six days and seven nights.” The voice was Vayon Poole’s. The steward held a cup to Ned’s lips. “Drink, my lord.” (AGOT Eddard X)
The most striking thing about this dream, to me, is how extremely sensitive it is to context. So much of the meanings hinge upon events that happened before this scene, shared understandings between the characters, and the nature of their relationships, that it’s hard to know how to interpret them. Many of the speaking parts in it take on totally different subtext by simply reading it in a different tone of voice. For example, Ned’s line “Now it ends” can make sense in either a threatening tone or a somber one, even though those tones would suggest very different things about what Ned is feeling, thinking, what happened before this and what the relationships between these characters might have been.
The interactions are so apparently pregnant with some shared understanding between Ned and the three Kingsguard that my overall impression of the dream is that this meeting and conflict was expected by everyone who speaks: Ned, Gerold, Oswell and Arthur. To begin a battle to the death with so little effort on the part of anybody except perhaps Ned to solve their problem using words strongly suggests that the problem took place long before this meeting, that it’s well beyond the possibility of a peaceful resolution, and that they all know it.
Ned says “Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone” and “I thought you might have sailed with him.” That can be read as though Ned is accusing the three Kingsguard of being cowards, or, that Ned is sad that they didn’t flee and that he has to fight them. But it can’t really be read as both. Which one do you think it is?
Oddly, Ned’s dream explicitly tells me that two details are literal rather than symbolic.
In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life.
They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life.
These lines help me rest assured about whether the event really happened, who was there, how many men were on each side, and which side of the fight each person was on.
The Rebel Side
- Eddard Stark
- Martyn Cassell
- Theo Wull
- Ethan Glover
- Mark Ryswell
- Howland Reed
- Lord Dustin
The Targaryen Side
- Gerold Hightower
- Oswell Whent
- Arthur Dayne
Without going into depth about these characters, one question I can ask about the Tower of Joy is ‘Why are there three Kingsguard, as opposed to one, two or four?’ It seems overkill for Rhaegar to have so many of his deadliest fighters devoted to guarding a fifteen-year-old girl and a tower in the middle of nowhere, especially while those Kingsguard could have been the difference between victory or defeat in the war by fighting at the Battle of the Trident, as Ned and Oswell point out in the 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.
Ned’s line suggests that Ned was expecting more Kingsguard at the Battle of the Trident, and Oswell’s line might suggest that Oswell would have preferred fewer Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy and more at the Battle of the Trident. So these lines steer me away from the question “Why not four?” and toward the questions “Why not two? Or one? Or none?” What’s so important at the Tower of Joy that Rhaegar thinks it needs to be guarded by three of the seven best knights in the world?
If R+L=J, then maybe Rhaegar wanted to protect Lyanna and his son Jon. But since Rhaegar’s first son and heir Aegon was still alive in King’s Landing at the time, it might not make sense for Rhaegar to have placed the three Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy rather than at King’s Landing. On the other hand, the Tower of Joy is more vulnerable than the Red Keep, so it might make sense after all.
Gerold Hightower
In November 2012, a mobile application was released by the name of George R. R. Martin’s A World of Ice and Fire — A Game of Thrones Guide (henceforth AWOIAF). The app provided new tidbits of information that can’t be found in any of the previously published books. The information in it is considered semi-canon, because it was written by Martin’s co-authors from The World of Ice and Fire, Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson, with input from Martin himself.
In the Rhaegar Targaryen section of AWOIAF, we learn that, after the Targaryen defeat in the Battle of the Bells, King Aerys sent his kingsguard commander Ser Gerold Hightower away from King’s Landing to find Rhaegar and return him to King’s Landing. Though Rhaegar eventually returned to King’s Landing, Gerold did not. Gerold was next seen at the Tower of Joy in Dorne, with Arthur Dayne and Oswell Whent, guarding Lyanna.
To judge by this information, it seems that when Gerold found Rhaegar at the Tower of Joy, Rhaegar told Gerold to stay and help guard it, and then departed for King’s Landing himself.
It’s a little strange that the commander of the kingsguard obeys a command that keeps him far away from the king he’s sworn to protect, and during dire times such as these. It seems even stranger considering that the command comes from Rhaegar, who the king believes is trying to usurp the throne from him. Though, it doesn’t seem much stranger than Oswell Whent and Arthur Dayne doing the very same thing.
Whatever is really going on here regarding these characters’ true loyalties and motivations, I notice that this new bit of information has the effect of highlighting a familiar-looking intrigue about the Tower of Joy: When Gerold arrived, Rhaegar left. In other words, when three guards became four, Rhaegar made it three again. What’s so important about the number three guards?
This information need not necessarily mean that the number of guards being three is important. For example, it’s possible that Rhaegar might have left the Tower of Joy before Gerold arrived if he had known he was wanted elsewhere without Gerold having told him that. Likewise, it’s possible that if Gerold had arrived without news that Rhaegar was wanted elsewhere, Rhaegar might have remained at the Tower of Joy longer, making the number of guards four instead of three. Still, this new detail about Gerold Hightower’s arrival and Rhaegar’s departure is the third time that my investigation into the Tower of Joy has led me to a suggestion that there is a hidden significance in the number of guards being three. So, what can three guards do at the Tower of Joy that one or two cannot?
The takeaway: There is a hidden reason why there were three Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy.
When All The Smiles Died
So far, Ned’s thoughts relating to A Song of Ice and Fire’s central mysteries have trickled onto the page gradually over the course of A Game of Thrones. In Ned’s final POV chapter ever, Eddard XV, he’s sitting in a dark prison cell beneath the Red Keep, delirious with hunger, thirst and solitude, and awaiting likely execution.
As if to imitate the posthumous boon quality of other of Ned’s last deeds, A Game of Thrones rewards us with one final massive gift from the thoughts of Ned. Many of the people and events in the central mysteries we’re investigating appear all together in the span of five paragraphs; The Tourney at Harrenhal, Promise me Ned, Rhaegar crowning Lyanna the queen of love and beauty and more.
When All The Smiles Died
He could no longer tell the difference between waking and sleeping. The memory came creeping upon him in the darkness, as vivid as a dream. It was the year of false spring, and he was eighteen again, down from the Eyrie to the tourney at Harrenhal. He could see the deep green of the grass, and smell the pollen on the wind. Warm days and cool nights and the sweet taste of wine. He remembered Brandon’s laughter, and Robert’s berserk valor in the melee, the way he laughed as he unhorsed men left and right. He remembered Jaime Lannister, a golden youth in scaled white armor, kneeling on the grass in front of the king’s pavilion and making his vows to protect and defend King Aerys. Afterward, Ser Oswell Whent helped Jaime to his feet, and the White Bull himself, Lord Commander Ser Gerold Hightower, fastened the snowy cloak of the Kingsguard about his shoulders. All six White Swords were there to welcome their newest brother.
Yet when the jousting began, the day belonged to Rhaegar Targaryen. The crown prince wore the armor he would die in: gleaming black plate with the three-headed dragon of his House wrought in rubies on the breast. A plume of scarlet silk streamed behind him when he rode, and it seemed no lance could touch him. Brandon fell to him, and Bronze Yohn Royce, and even the splendid Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning.
Robert had been jesting with Jon and old Lord Hunter as the prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the final tilt to claim the champion’s crown. Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty’s laurel in Lyanna’s lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.
Ned Stark reached out his hand to grasp the flowery crown, but beneath the pale blue petals the thorns lay hidden. He felt them clawing at his skin, sharp and cruel, saw the slow trickle of blood run down his fingers, and woke, trembling, in the dark.
Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses.
“Gods save me,” Ned wept. “I am going mad.”
The gods did not deign to answer. (AGOT Eddard XV)
The memory begins in an idealized place, like the beginning of a story. Ned is young and happy, the days are warm, the nights are cool and the wine is sweet. I can imagine the manic joy in Robert’s face during the melee. Even Jaime’s happiness is part of the nostalgia, despite how familiar we are with Ned’s contempt for him. This is a memory from a time before Ned had a reason to dislike Jaime. My sense is that all is well with the world.
Then the memory moves to Rhaegar’s spectacular performance in the jousting tournament. “The crown prince wore the armor he would die in” is an unexpectedly morbid line in an otherwise happy memory so far, but at least it tells me what Rhaegar was wearing at the Battle of the Trident. According to legend, the rubies on this breastplate were knocked free by Robert’s warhammer and fell into the river, which is how the Ruby Ford got its name. (That’s the place whereabouts Arya’s direwolf Nymeria bit Joffrey.)
Robert had been jesting with Jon and old Lord Hunter as the prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the final tilt to claim the champion’s crown. Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty’s laurel in Lyanna’s lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.
Rhaegar wins the tournament and then he circles the field in a sort of victory lap. I imagine he’s happy that he won. Maybe this victory lap is standard practice in tournaments, in order to put on a good show for the audience.
Since Rhaegar won’t have carried the champion’s crown with him during the joust, he must have rode over to the Whent family where the crown was removed from the defending queen of love and beauty, Lord Whent’s daughter, and then perhaps placed on Rhaegar’s lance.
Rhaegar rode past his wife Elia and toward the Stark family, and placed the crown of pale blue winter roses in Lyanna’s lap. I imagine he remained seated on his horse and let the crown slide off the lance. Then all the smiles died, and I can see the reactions of some characters in The World of Ice and Fire: The Year of the False Spring. Brandon was outraged and needed to be restrained. Ned was quiet but displeased. Robert laughed about it publicly and said that Rhaegar only paid Lyanna her due, but he brooded about it in private.
It’s curious that we never hear about Elia’s reaction. Elia is presumably the most aggrieved person in the situation. Her husband did something extremely insulting to her in front of practically all the lords and ladies of the realm. It seems fair to assume that Elia was offended by it, but the longer the story foregoes opportunities to give me the slightest indication of how Elia received the controversy, the more suspicious I become that the story is hiding it. On the part of the author, I can imagine that one possible reason for hiding information is that the truth of it is not what I expect it to be.
The first takeaway: A Song of Ice and Fire is hiding Elia Martell’s reaction to Rhaegar crowning Lyanna the queen of love and beauty.
He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.
This line helps me rest assured that the color of the roses on the crown was definitely blue.
Ned Stark reached out his hand to grasp the flowery crown, but beneath the pale blue petals the thorns lay hidden. He felt them clawing at his skin, sharp and cruel, saw the slow trickle of blood run down his fingers, and woke, trembling, in the dark.
It isn’t clear whether this part is literal or symbolic, until I consider that it wouldn’t make much sense for the Tournament organizers not to remove the thorns. This laurel is supposed to be handled and worn on someone’s head, after all. So this part is definitely symbolic.
This part being symbolic in addition to the “and woke” part both show me that this is no memory. The whole passage so far has been a dream. In the very first line of this passage, Ned warned me that this might be the case:
He could no longer tell the difference between waking and sleeping. The memory came creeping upon him in the darkness, as vivid as a dream.
Since the thorns are symbolic, what do the thorns symbolize? The thorns are a hidden danger to Ned that harms him. It’s something dangerous concealed by something beautiful, its beauty making it that much more dangerous.
The second takeaway: There is a hidden way that the crown of blue roses is dangerous to Ned.
Eddard Stark Summary
- Discussions about Ned hover at a tension between Ned’s honor is good and Ned’s honor is foolish.
- There is a hidden significance in the association between Lyanna and flowers.
- There is a hidden commonality between Sansa’s and Lyanna’s pleading.
- There is a hidden reason why there were three Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy.
- A Song of Ice and Fire is hiding Elia Martell’s reaction to Rhaegar crowning Lyanna the queen of love and beauty.
- There is a hidden way that the crown of blue roses is dangerous to Ned.
Next: Chapter 10 – Rhaegar Targaryen
Updated Dec 23, 2022 – Added Gerold Hightower AWOIAF
Apples and Dragons 