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Post by freyfamilyreunion on Jul 12, 2016 12:50:39 GMT
I think we have to consider GOT show a very dumbed down version of ASOIAF. If Martin is using the "love affair" of Rhaegar and Lyanna as a big misdirection, then the show is going to try and do this as well, in their own ham handed way. The problem that the show has, is that most of the viewers probably don't have a real good idea who Rhaegar and Lyanna are, because up until this season, their storyline was never properly set up by the show. These flashbacks that Bran is having should have been occurring since Season one. So now the show is rushing the whole Rhaegar Lyanna mythology through as fast as they can before the series runs its course. And HBO's clumsy infographic is their way of trying to compensate for not properly setting up the storyline.
I'm personally still holding out hope that we're going to get a big surprise as to Jon's father at least. I probably shouldn't care about what the show does, because it obviously has left the book's narrative substantially, yet for some reason I still care a bit. So I listened to that stupid tower of joy scene over and over hoping to corroborate my favorite theory a bit (that of Howland being Jon's father). I had even convinced myself that Lyanna tells Ned that he needs to protect "them" as opposed to "him" (i.e. she had twins, Jon and Meera) My wife, as usual the voice of reason, told me I was probably just hearing what I wanted to hear. She's probably right, and I'm just grasping at Reeds (heh). But one thing did occur to me, the show has left some room for ambiguity in the scene.
You can hear Lyanna whisper to Ned: "his name is..." and then "if Robert finds out he's going to kill him, you know he will." The knee jerk reaction is that Lyanna is whispering the name of the child to Ned. But I think there is at least the possibility that Lyanna is whispering the name of the father to Ned. I'm holding out hope that the name she whispers is Howland. I admit that it's a bit of a long shot (at least for the show) at this point but a few things in the story still exist that gives me some hope: Meera Reed is still alive, which for the HBO show means, that they still need her for some reason, because for cost cutting reasons they would have killed her along with every other character they were done with; then there is the presence of two wet nurses, perhaps one wet nurse for each of Lyanna's twins; and finally the show bothered to cast Howland, and actually had him do something fairly interesting in the background of the previous scene, when he went through and examined Arthur's body.
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Post by min on Jul 12, 2016 14:49:22 GMT
I think we have to consider GOT show a very dumbed down version of ASOIAF. If Martin is using the "love affair" of Rhaegar and Lyanna as a big misdirection, then the show is going to try and do this as well, in their own ham handed way. The problem that the show has, is that most of the viewers probably don't have a real good idea who Rhaegar and Lyanna are, because up until this season, their storyline was never properly set up by the show. These flashbacks that Bran is having should have been occurring since Season one. So now the show is rushing the whole Rhaegar Lyanna mythology through as fast as they can before the series runs its course. And HBO's clumsy infographic is their way of trying to compensate for not properly setting up the storyline. I'm personally still holding out hope that we're going to get a big surprise as to Jon's father at least. I probably shouldn't care about what the show does, because it obviously has left the book's narrative substantially, yet for some reason I still care a bit. So I listened to that stupid tower of joy scene over and over hoping to corroborate my favorite theory a bit (that of Howland being Jon's father). I had even convinced myself that Lyanna tells Ned that he needs to protect "them" as opposed to "him" (i.e. she had twins, Jon and Meera) My wife, as usual the voice of reason, told me I was probably just hearing what I wanted to hear. She's probably right, and I'm just grasping at Reeds (heh). But one thing did occur to me, the show has left some room for ambiguity in the scene. You can hear Lyanna whisper to Ned: "his name is..." and then "if Robert finds out he's going to kill him, you know he will." The knee jerk reaction is that Lyanna is whispering the name of the child to Ned. But I think there is at least the possibility that Lyanna is whispering the name of the father to Ned. I'm holding out hope that the name she whispers is Howland. I admit that it's a bit of a long shot (at least for the show) at this point but a few things in the story still exist that gives me some hope: Meera Reed is still alive, which for the HBO show means, that they still need her for some reason, because for cost cutting reasons they would have killed her along with every other character they were done with; then there is the presence of two wet nurses, perhaps one wet nurse for each of Lyanna's twins; and finally the show bothered to cast Howland, and actually had him do something fairly interesting in the background of the previous scene, when he went through and examined Arthur's body. The optimistic approach! I like it. I think there is a lot of wiggle room as well, deliberately so. There is also an SSM somewhere saying that Ned named Jon. I think that means something. I'm still holding out for the biggest misdirection of all... that Ned actually is Jon's father. Hmm, I wonder if Howland was looking for rubies. LOL.
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Post by jnr on Jul 12, 2016 17:10:48 GMT
I think we have to consider GOT show a very dumbed down version of ASOIAF. If Martin is using the "love affair" of Rhaegar and Lyanna as a big misdirection, then the show is going to try and do this as well, in their own ham handed way. Well, sometimes the show is dumbed-down ASOIAF, and other times it's clearly just a totally different thing. Dumbed-down: Dany's control over her dragons. This is a stupendously important plot complication in the books; Dany has virtually no control at all. There's no way, at present, that she could expect them to do whatever she wants, or even go wherever she wants. Crucial problem if she's going to be invading Westeros. To try to address this, GRRM provides Euron's horn and finds a way to get it to Meereen. Meanwhile, on the show? Dany just... suddenly has some sort of control. No explanation of any sort provided. OK, that's dumbed-down. Fundamentally different: Sansa's story. Going to Winterfell, marrying Ramsay, cutting a secret deal with Littlefinger, failing to inform Jon of this deal, and thus, becoming personally responsible for the mass death of the free folk and very nearly getting Jon himself killed (again). Well, all that is just wildly different from, and badly designed in comparison to, the books. Brienne's plotline also falls into this class. So which is Show RLJ? I really just am not sure. I'll give you this, they're clearly doing GRRM's thing of making it the easy and obvious explanation; they're doing a dumbed-down version in that sense. But they could easily wind up with a different set of parents than GRRM uses in the books. The timeline/relevant facts/SSMs that apply to Book World just don't apply to Show World, so they have many more options than GRRM does. And D&D are woefully bad at anything resembling continuity, as so many have pointed out, so even if they were logically limited by previously revealed facts, I don't know that they'd even care. I'm personally still holding out hope that we're going to get a big surprise as to Jon's father at least. I think the odds of this are good given that if they had really wanted to reveal RLJ, they would have just done it. Having Lyanna audibly announce the baby's father would have required changing a single line of dialogue. D&D didn't choose to do it; instead they basically just delivered the same info, in the same Promise Me Ned scene, that we book readers have had since 1996. Whatever some HBO staffer did in an infographic, based on nobody-knows-whose-authorization, can't trump that. The primary distinction in my mind was that Lyanna appeared much bloodier than I would have expected. That was not just a metaphorical "bed of blood" of the kind constantly promoted by RLJ true believers as a euphemism for any childbirth, IMO. I would not be the least surprised if Jon were a breech and one of the KG had to resort to an impromptu and utterly unprofessional C-section, and it was that situation ultimately resulted in Lyanna's death. Getting slashed open with a blade, and never being attended or stitched by a maester, would correspond to Theon's vision of Lyanna in the books, too:
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Post by min on Jul 12, 2016 17:49:50 GMT
I think we have to consider GOT show a very dumbed down version of ASOIAF. If Martin is using the "love affair" of Rhaegar and Lyanna as a big misdirection, then the show is going to try and do this as well, in their own ham handed way. Well, sometimes the show is dumbed-down ASOIAF, and other times it's clearly just a totally different thing. Dumbed-down: Dany's control over her dragons. This is a stupendously important plot complication in the books; Dany has virtually no control at all. There's no way, at present, that she could expect them to do whatever she wants, or even go wherever she wants. Crucial problem if she's going to be invading Westeros. To try to address this, GRRM provides Euron's horn and finds a way to get it to Meereen. Meanwhile, on the show? Dany just... suddenly has some sort of control. No explanation of any sort provided. OK, that's dumbed-down. Fundamentally different: Sansa's story. Going to Winterfell, marrying Ramsay, cutting a secret deal with Littlefinger, failing to inform Jon of this deal, and thus, becoming personally responsible for the mass death of the free folk and very nearly getting Jon himself killed (again). Well, all that is just wildly different from, and badly designed in comparison to, the books. Brienne's plotline also falls into this class. So which is Show RLJ? I really just am not sure. I'll give you this, they're clearly doing GRRM's thing of making it the easy and obvious explanation; they're doing a dumbed-down version in that sense. But they could easily wind up with a different set of parents than GRRM uses in the books. The timeline/relevant facts/SSMs that apply to Book World just don't apply to Show World, so they have many more options than GRRM does. And D&D are woefully bad at anything resembling continuity, as so many have pointed out, so even if they were logically limited by previously revealed facts, I don't know that they'd even care. I'm personally still holding out hope that we're going to get a big surprise as to Jon's father at least. I think the odds of this are good given that if they had really wanted to reveal RLJ, they would have just done it. Having Lyanna audibly announce the baby's father would have required changing a single line of dialogue. D&D didn't choose to do it; instead they basically just delivered the same info, in the same Promise Me Ned scene, that we book readers have had since 1996. Whatever some HBO staffer did in an infographic, based on nobody-knows-whose-authorization, can't trump that. The primary distinction in my mind was that Lyanna appeared much bloodier than I would have expected. That was not just a metaphorical "bed of blood" of the kind constantly promoted by RLJ true believers as a euphemism for any childbirth, IMO. I would not be the least surprised if Jon were a breech and one of the KG had to resort to an impromptu and utterly unprofessional C-section, and it was that situation ultimately resulted in Lyanna's death. Getting slashed open with a blade, and never being attended or stitched by a maester, would correspond to Theon's vision of Lyanna in the books, too: I really appreciate this kind of clarity.
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Post by freyfamilyreunion on Jul 12, 2016 18:32:32 GMT
JNR:
I'm leaning this way as well. If so, it would give yet another parallel to King Robert's death bed scene:
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Post by Melifeather on Jul 12, 2016 18:53:28 GMT
JNR: I'm leaning this way as well. If so, it would give yet another parallel to King Robert's death bed scene: It's an interesting parallel and very similar to tower of joy scene with a Kingsguard at his bed, but Robert obviously didn't have a child, and a sword can be a bastard too so Lyanna could have been injured by a bastard sword.
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Post by Weasel Pie on Jul 12, 2016 18:54:51 GMT
I took a screenshot of the bloody bed. And pillow and floor and blankets and god knows what else. There's also another big separate splotch at the foot of the bed where Ned rests Ice. Slightly enhanced contrast and saturation. Click to enlarge.
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Post by wolfmaid7 on Jul 12, 2016 21:41:43 GMT
The primary distinction in my mind was that Lyanna appeared much bloodier than I would have expected. That was not just a metaphorical "bed of blood" of the kind constantly promoted by RLJ true believers as a euphemism for any childbirth, IMO. I would not be the least surprised if Jon were a breech and one of the KG had to resort to an impromptu and utterly unprofessional C-section, and it was that situation ultimately resulted in Lyanna's death. Getting slashed open with a blade, and never being attended or stitched by a maester, would correspond to Theon's vision of Lyanna in the books, too: To preface this i don't believe Lyanna was at the toj,but i'll speak per what the show is depicting. Rhaegar is an effing douche,the KGs never gave a shit and Lyanna never had a chance.Seriously,two handmaidens and NO Maester to accompany a pregnant woman. That's a lot of blood i've had the oppurtunity to observe childbirth in areas of the world where the only "professionals" was a midwife and an attendent or two.Mother and infant mortality during and especially after childbirth is still endemic to some countries and remains a part of WHO millenium goals. GRRM knows alot about medieval history and culture and i would like to think that he's done his research on this because clearly the show didn't "unless" they have gone the angle of a medieval C-Section performed by KGs or two handmaidens and they cut the baby out of her. In those days a woman wouldn't have been lying on her back.She would have been on all fours,sitting at the edge of a chair or bed (legs opened) etc.Lying like that is a modern,very modern practice designed for the comfort of health professionals instead of the mother. But hey who am i kidding, these people had Arya got stabbed twice and a short while later was able to do Pakor across Braavos.
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Post by Ser Duncan on Jul 13, 2016 2:39:41 GMT
Rhaegar is an effing douche,the KGs never gave a shit and Lyanna never had a chance.Seriously,two handmaidens and NO Maester to accompany a pregnant woman. Seriously, that for me confirms that was no future royal she was carrying. Bastard or not, a product of love or rape, if Rhaegar was the father and he was after the third head of the dragon for his Aegon, then Lyanna would be well attended. This is simply not how you care for a woman who's going to give birth to a much longed for third child.
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Post by jnr on Jul 13, 2016 2:52:38 GMT
Also, of course, Ned remembers This too makes me think C-section, in retrospect. A lot of blood is required for that. the KGs never gave a shit and Lyanna never had a chance.Seriously,two handmaidens and NO Maester to accompany a pregnant woman. Sing it, sister. It's just a ridiculous situation, isn't it? How can a reasonable person possibly argue that that... was the best way the KG could think of to protect the baby they believed their king? But that's just what's routinely argued all the same, and has been for over a decade now. (I'm sure the good MtnLion would come up with some kooky justification. He once actually wrote that for him, GRRM had already written Jon was the trueborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen.)
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Post by jnr on Jul 13, 2016 2:58:01 GMT
I took a screenshot of the bloody bed. And pillow and floor and blankets and god knows what else. There's also another big separate splotch at the foot of the bed where Ned rests Ice. Slightly enhanced contrast and saturation. Click to enlarge. View AttachmentAnother point here... the idea is obviously that whatever TF made the bed that super-bloody, it just happened. Because otherwise the sheets would surely have been changed, and Lyanna's clothes, right? The two maids could surely handle that much at least? So on the show, basically, we're expected to believe that by a truly supreme coincidence, Lyanna gave birth an hour or less before Ned showed up at the ToJ. Wow! Even on a show where Brienne randomly stumbles onto both Arya and Sansa, that is a coincidence that gives me pause.
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Post by wolfmaid7 on Jul 13, 2016 4:20:26 GMT
Seriously, that for me confirms that was no future royal she was carrying. Bastard or not, a product of love or rape, if Rhaegar was the father and he was after the third head of the dragon for his Aegon, then Lyanna would be well attended. This is simply not how you care for a woman who's going to give birth to a much longed for third child. Believe nothing and question everything.That's why i reject the Lyanna at toj theory.Whereever and whenever that room was.It wasn't at toj during Ned's battle with KGS surrounded by a handmaiden or two who Ned surely killed and no Maester.Its beyond me how that could be believed. It's just a ridiculous situation, isn't it? How can a reasonable person possibly argue that that... was the best way the KG could think of to protect the baby they believed their king? But that's just what's routinely argued all the same, and has been for over a decade now. (I'm sure the good MtnLion would come up with some kooky justification. He once actually wrote that for him, GRRM had already written Jon was the trueborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen.) It is a really shitty explanation isn't it?If true ,evey step the KGS made up till that point ensured they were going to fail that mission.
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Post by Weasel Pie on Jul 13, 2016 11:10:18 GMT
So on the show, basically, we're expected to believe that by a truly supreme coincidence, Lyanna gave birth an hour or less before Ned showed up at the ToJ. More like seconds before. Lyanna was screaming often and loudly enough that The Bran had to return to see why. This is simply not how you care for a woman who's going to give birth to a much longed for third child. If true ,evey step the KGS made up till that point ensured they were going to fail that mission. ...and they could have had no idea if that child would be born male or alive.
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Post by jnr on Jul 13, 2016 14:38:44 GMT
Lyanna was screaming often and loudly enough that The Bran had to return to see why. Yes, in the show; the books, at least, have her screaming "Eddard!" in Ned's dream, which implies to me she was not giving birth, but was watching him engage the deadliest knights of his time and was terrified on his behalf. Though, as always, it was only a fever dream, and that bit is exactly where the dream starts to turn surreal. ...and they could have had no idea if that child would be born male or alive. And despite that, they ignored the fact that their living king, Aerys, whom they had all sworn to protect on pain of death, was clearly in peril. The RLJ answer to this has always been that they were in an isolated tower and didn't know about Aerys; they only knew about pregnant Lyanna. But this implies the deliberate plan was for Lyanna to give birth to King Jon I in that isolated tower with no maester. It's a clear failure of logic because (as you point out) they didn't yet know the baby was male, or would be born healthy/alive at all, and if they wanted to max the odds of healthy birth, a maester would be essential. And there's no clear sign of any maester in books or show. So there really just has never been a good way to explain the RLJ position on this topic, IMO. Any way you slice it, the KG's deliberate plan (or improvised response to the Sack, whichever) just doesn't work. What does work is to assume that they were acting on Rhaegar's strict orders (as GRRM has flat-out told us, and so did the show)... that they didn't know what the sex of the fetus was... and that Lyanna's health was none too great a priority, and nor was the baby's. Rhaegar evidently didn't order them to get a maester, so they didn't.
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Post by jnr on Jul 13, 2016 14:46:05 GMT
I also note that the supreme coincidence above -- Ned finds his sister in the very hour she gives birth -- isn't a problem in the books.
We have no info that says Lyanna was wearing bloodsoaked clothes, and lying in bloodsoaked sheets, which are the tipoff of a super-recent birth. We only know that in Ned's opinion the room smelled, in some general sense, of blood, for some reason.
Maybe it was that her clothes and sheets had been changed and tossed into a corner and not yet washed. Or maybe, more gruesomely, the mattress was bloodstained and could not be replaced.
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