A Posting of Ice and Fire: Enjoying twenty years of plots, theories, and characters while the story is in production. SPOILERS!

[Boaz]

Caveat lectoris. Let the reader beware.

When I said that I thought Jon was Eddard's son, a friend told me to look up R+L=J on the net. I had taken A Song of Ice and Fire at face value. This began changing my understanding of what George Martin is communicating. I read about R+L=J and posted some thoughts on a website that went defunct in 2004. I began posting on The Chronicles Network on July 14, 2005.

I remember the excitement of looking for subterfuge, misinformation, and unreliable sources. I reread the series this summer and determined to finalize my thoughts. I've posted these thoughts on various threads here in the GRRM forum. I'll summarize them below, but I really want to communicate the enjoyment that @Brian G Turner and then entire Chrons community have given me. I miss the posters who no longer haunt the Martin forums... Egg, AU, tsw, TK-421, WS, Wiggum, The Imp, Clanny, Tywin, Raven, Wert, Needle and many others. It's good to see @Koopa and @Ursa major still around the forums. When the books are published, people get on the net and post. This is akin to the Long Night... Winter has come.

I used to believe Eddard was Jon's father and then Rhaegar. I used to believe Tywin was Tyrion's father. I used to believe Sandor was dead. I used to believe that Olenna Tyrell murdered Joffrey. I used to believe that the story would play out in the vein of Tolkien and Lewis... Good triumphs.

Here's what I think...
-Eddard secretly married Ashara Dayne and fathered Aegon (young Griff). Without a divorce nor anullment, Eddard married Catelyn and thus Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Rickon are illegtimate.
-Tywin knew this and used it to get the Westerlings to destroy Robb.
-Tywin is sterile.
-Joanna Lannister and Aerys II hooked up (consentually or not) twice and the results are Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion.
-Aerys II fathered seven children: Rhaegar, Cersei, Jaime, Tyrion, Viserys, Jon and Daenerys.
-Shae is Sarella. She poisoned Tywin.
-There were two plans of murder at Joffrey and Margaery's wedding feast. The Tyrells planned to poison Joffrey's wine, but either did not get around to it or were in fact beaten by mere seconds when Joffrey accidentally ate Tyrion's poisoned cream sauce on the pie. The sauce was poisoned on Oberyn's orders in order to kill all of Tywin's children in front of him.
-Howland Reed has some mental power.... telepathy, skinchanging, or greenseer. He used this ability to defeat three knights at Harrenhal and to defeat Arthur Dayne at the Tower of Joy.
-Anne McCaffrey's Pern stories feature ancient space colonists, lost tech, forgotten history, genetic modification, and dragons... and so does Westeros.
-The various stories of the Last Hero, Azor Ahai, and others all relate to misremembered past persons and a forgotten event.
-The various prophecies of the Stallion, the Prince, the three heads, and AA reborn are all parts of attempts to defeat the Others.
-The various religions are methods to bring about the hero to fight the Others. The Drowned God, the Great Stallion, Rh'llor, the Great Shepherd, the God of Many Faces, and the Seven are examples.
-Bran is affecting people through the weirwood network. He can speak into the past, present, and future. He already has or will discover the means to either defeat The Other or forge a renewed peace between the Others and humans.
-AA Reborn may not be just one person. Bran, Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Arya, Sansa, and Aegon all possess aspects or tools of AAR... and have come too far into the story to all be ruled out, except for one. The three-headed dragon is the prophecy to show this.

So over the last three months, I've searched the internet anew... and read three of the Tuf Voyaging stories. I looked at more popular ASOIAF sites, but this is my site I'm not posting anywhere else. In 2020, I saw Preston Jacobs' Dragon Genetics videos on youtube so I went there... and I've seen all of Preston's videos... which led me to An American Thinks' videos.... which led me to The Order of the Green Hands' videos... which led me to David Lightbringer's videos. It seems that going outside my own thoughts and outside the Chrons is all I have left.

Preston opened my eyes to The Thousand Worlds Universe (the concept that all of GRRM's writings exist in the same space/time), An American Thinks builds on Preston's thoughts regarding geology and hydrology, The Order of the Green Hand sees a First Man coalition pulling the strings, and Lightbringer's theories center on astrology/astronomy/mythology.

It's intriguing to view the approaches that these youtubers bring. The Order looks for hard facts and imaginative connecting of these facts. They've developed a timeline for Robert's Rebellion based upon travel times and distances. Preston looks for facts and writing style, while An American looks at GRRM's personal life and previous writings for clues. And Lightbringer's work starts with Martin's world building mythos in relation to history.

These youtubers have confirmed many of my thoughts, both positively and negatively. I do not plan on returning to the Green Hand since their stuff is much like my own conjecture. They also believe Eddard was married before Catelyn. I enjoy much of American's and Preston's thoughts because of their research into GRRM's life and works. Even though I've only seen four or five of Lightbringer's videos, I'll be watching more.

It's been twenty years since I first felt the thrill of discovery in ASOIAF. I've got that feeling again. I wonder what it might have been like (if I'd been alive and we'd had the internet and Tolkien had taken years and years to publish The Lord of the Rings) to have participated in discovery and discussion on Tolkien's works. I hoped that Joe Abercrombie's First Law series would enjoy ASOIAF's popularity in posting. I'm determined to enjoy posting here as long as I can.

 

[Boaz]

Or mayhaps I'm only seeking to justify the time I've spent.

 

[Judderman]

You always state your theories so well it is hard to separate your theories from fact. Incredible amount of detail in some of those groups you mention too.
Why would Eddard be married rather than simply fathered a bar steward? Was too honourable even in his youth? If so why was the marriage a secret?

 

[Boaz]

@Judderman Eddard's first secret marriage is my latest idea to explain Jon's mother. The Order of the Green Hand came up with the same concept with different particulars, including a timeline... but I digress. I began to think about this when I started comparing Eddard's life as foreshadowing for Jon's and Robb's lives. Jon's and Robb's romances had major issues. Jon got engaged and never knew it. In his heart he was loyal to the NW, but Ygritte felt he betrayed her. Robb got engaged, but broke it when he took Jeyne Westerling's virginity and married her in secret. So Eddard's life should foreshadow these problems. But in the ASOIAF narrative, we are told Eddard married Catelyn after Brandon's death... and that Eddard fathered a son while on campaign. This narrative does not fit at all with Jon's and Robb's experiences.

Eddard needs to have a problematic engagement and a betrayal.

There are a few curious events surrounding the time from Lyanna's disappearance to Eddard's marriage to Eddard's showdown with Arthur to Benjen's taking of the Black. Since Jon had a secret engagement (at least to him) while Robb had a public engagement and a secret marriage... I figure that Eddard had a secret engagement and a secret marriage before his public engagement and marriage.

We are led to believe from Meera's and Barristan's stories and from Catelyn's memory that Eddard had a romantic relationship with Ashara Dayne beginning at the Tournament at Harrenhal. My ideas on a liason at Maidenpool (during a delicate Elia's pregnancy) and a later liason at KL are conjecture.

In ADWD, Davos is told that Eddard passed through the Sisters on his way to rally the North for Robert's Rebellion and that Eddard was traveling with a female companion with whom he was intimate. Later at White Harbor, Davos is told that Eddard passed through and a woman is not mentioned.

It's flimsy. It's more filling in blanks than facts... but I think Eddard wooed Ashara (people saw this at Harrenhal), then took her virginity and secretly married her (like Robb did to Jeyne), and then found out that Hoster Tully was demanding Eddard marry Catelyn in Brandon's place. Since Ashara was not available and Eddard had to immediately cement an alliance (Northern lord needs troops and access to Riverlands in order to fight a war, just like Robb), Eddard did not even obtain an annulment... i.e. he committed polygamy by marrying Catelyn. This means that Jon is Eddard's only true born son.

We are told that Hoster Tully was a hard man and a real player of the Game. He got his two daughters married to two of the great houses. With Edmure inheriting Riverrun, his grandsons would rule three of the Seven Kingdoms. But he could not have any of Ashara's sons in his way, so he, Jon Arryn, Eddard, and Brynden Tully buried the truth.

Anyway, that's what I have. I've found other's comments that if Jon is a Dayne, then he will be the next Sword of the Morning. The Sword of the Morning gets to carry Dawn. Both of these names mean a bringing of the light... and Lightbringer is the name of Azor Ahai's sword.

More than likely, I'm wrong. But again, it's fun to theorize.