Wintertime: Would have the great houses have necessarily stood with Robert? In, I think, The Game of Thrones, Robert tells Ned that many houses supported the Targaryens. Possibly they would have gone back to that family, especially since Robert proved to be a lousy king. I also contend that Varys might have wanted to keep the incest secret simply because he can use it as a weapon in the future. When ASOFAI opens, Varys is certainly intelligent enough to manipulate Cersei without exposing her and Jaime seems to be uninterested in anything but Cersei and war.
I agree with you that Littlefinger and Varys are master schemers.
Your suggested about Mandon Moore is very intriguing, but I’m inclined to agree with Tyrion. A knight on the Kingsguard would be likely to despise Littlefinger, I think, because Peytr isn’t a bold fighter and lacks birth in the proper family.
House Baratheon, Stark, Arryn (Jon was the Hand) and Tully (connected to Stark) would have stood with Robert; the Martells would have never helped the Lannisters, the Tyrells would have been too clever to side with an outnumbered and disgraced house. The Greyjoys didn’t matter.
Besides, everyone loves to go after the creditor - easiest way to get rid of your debts.
And Robert would have had a decade less to be drunk and disorderly, the Targaryens would have been little children .. no, I don’t think that any house besides the Martells would have favoured a defeated family that consisted of two children only and had no power base at all any longer.
But Moore was from the Vale and came to King’s Landing with Jon Arryn – and Lysa is in it with Petyr.
Esp. when those two children were the issue of a mad king who had perhaps passed his madness on to them; there seems to be at least some awareness in Westeros of the dangers of longterm inbreeding.
Speaking which, I have to say that the guy playing Varys is doing a fantastic job. Every word he says comes out as being so sweet and so sincere, but he also does a great job getting across that he doesn’t mean a word of it.
As opposed to Littlefinger’s actor, who I have to say just seems way too modern.
True, though i keep half expecting him to say, “oh.. I’m afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive…” with the same false sincerity.
That’s interesting, because to me, Littlefinger has always come across as too modern in the books; a 21st-Cetury political operative trapped in the Middle Ages. In fact, I think he was written that way on purpose.
Here is an idea I’ve mulled over since this thread started and I skimmed through the books again.
Could Rhaeger and Lyanna really have been in love with each other and thus there was no rape? That would mean Robert’s hatred of the Targaryens is partly unfounded.
We’re told that Rhaeger carried off Lyanna, and Robert & Ned obviousily believe it was kidnapping. However, I’ve wondered if Rhaeger and Lyanna hadn’t fallen at love in the tourney and faked an abduction. Lyanna is described as being as wild as Arya so I can see her doing something like this, especially since the prince was married.
Anyone have any comments on this theory?
I had forgotten that, wintertime. That makes your suggestion very intriguing. It also makes a great deal of sense as Tyrion is far more competent and intelligent than Cersei. Littlefinger WOULD want him out of the way first.
I think it’s quite possible. It would really stick in both Robert’s and Ned’s craws if Lyanna had genuinely loved a Targaryen, esp. the eldest son of the Mad King who killed Ned’s father and brother. It also supports longtime speculation that Jon Snow is Rhaegar’s and Lyanna’s orphaned son.
As mswas has pointed out repeatedly over at the Giraffe Boards in a similar thread, the only two people that we really get any kind of “bad report” about Rhaegar from are Robert and Ned, and Ned seems to have reconsidered his opinion in the last 15 years or so. Every neutral- to Targaryen-biased opinion about Rhaegar seems to have been that he’d have been an ideal and popular successor to Aerys if he’d survived and managed to stop Robert’s Rebellion.
It really does seem like Robert has twisted events around Lyanna & Rhaegar to spare his own feelings and to make himself look like the wronged party (“My betrothed was kidnapped and raped! I HAD to rebel!”)
Hey man, like I said, I didn’t figure it out myself. Others who paid much more attention than I did.
If you reread the books now that you’ve figured out what you’ve figured out, it actually seems kind of obvious. Of course, stuff like that is easy once you’ve gotten the idea to watch for things.
Now…who is Rheagar and Lyanna’s son? If you’ve put together the rest on your own you must have a theory.
Merijeek: Oh, yes, it’s obvious that if Lyanna did love Rhaegar and died in childbirth, then the son is Jon Snow. In that case, it’s no wonder Ned doesn’t want to discuss Jon’s parentage.
Elendil’s Heir: Interesting post. I would go with Mark Strong myself.
And there’s probably only one person in Westeros who can vouch for that, and he’s a character we haven’t even seen yet, even if his kids have been running around with Bran.
Absolutely; Varys is fantastic and, imo, close to the book persona – though I’d have to reread the assassination attempt on Dany again to see whether they started to deviate from the original.
Differences between the incarnations might become quite interesting - and since Martin is involved – illuminative in the long run.
Why do you give away the time traveling twist ending?
Ups. Forget what I just said.
To be honest, a friend of mine had reminded me where Moore came from when we discussed ASoS while reading it. I wouldn’t remember much at all if that guy wasn’t such a fan of fantasy in general and ASoIaF in particular. He practically held me at gunpoint to make me read AGoT; and this was the one time that he succeeded in triggering any kind of expectations. Not that I don’t like the fantastique in literature but, usually, I am bored by the classic sword & sorcery or closely related tales.
Well, Robert rebelled when Ayers ordered Jon Arryn to have him and Ned turned over for execution. So he still was the wronged party, even if it was Areys and not Rhaegar that did most of the wronging.
(indeed, I don’t think we ever hear what Robert did in reaction to the actual kidnapping of his betrothed. Ned’s older brother went and got himself killed, but Robert apparently stayed in the Eyrie the whole time).
This is the subject that I want to bring up in the show thread. I think enough events have happened that it doesn’t spoil anything, particularly since it is speculation anyway. Think that it’s more than could be handled?
