Remember Darth Vader’s famous “Nooooo”? That was my reaction when I read you endorsing the “Ned and Ashara were in love” idea. Jokes aside, I’d like to hear your reasons for supporting something that goes against my entire idea of Ned’s character in so many ways.

evelynvincible:

racefortheironthrone:

Sure, here are my reasons:

1. It’s clear from the text that Ned was strongly attracted to Ashara Dayne at the Tourney at Harrenhal. Ned’s an honorable man, but he’s someone with sexual passion and romantic desire too. And as neither he nor she was betrothed, their liaison is hardly dishonorable. 

2. I also think it feeds well into the central themes of Ned’s character – especially his being torn between honor and family, between duty and desire – and the overarching themes that GRRM is interested in (the human heart at war with itself). If Ned never felt anything for a woman before Catelyn, we don’t have the kind of conflict that we had in Catelyn’s case. In fact, wrt to the whole “promise me, Ned” thing, if Ned had nothing to do with Ashara Dayne, there’s no reason for her to exist as a red herring when you already have Wylla to perform that function. 

2a. If he did, then we have a better case of those themes at work. Ned was in love with one woman, but honor forced him to marry another. Then his desire to protect his family destroyed the woman he loved, and then poisoned his marriage. 

3. It also creates a nice parallel between Ned and Catelyn – both of them got married for the sake of their families, both of them entered into the marriage while being in love with someone else, and neither of them were in love with or particularly attracted to the other partner initially, and then grew to have more. 

4. I think it also works better to explain Ashara Dayne. If all she is to Ned is one of Brandon’s exes, why does he care about her? Why insist that her name not be mentioned, when he goes to some lengths to ensure that Wylla’s name is spread around? Why have there be rumors or have her in the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree, when Lyanna is really the main point of that story? Likewise, it makes her eventual fate and Ned’s final meeting that much more meaningful – it’s a lot less tragic for her ex’s brother to kill her brother than for her lover to kill her brother. 

5. I also think it works to explain Brandon Stark’s character. It’s one thing for him to be a hot-headed horn-dog who Ned somewhat resents for being daddy’s favorite and having to live Brandon’s life for him. It’s another thing for him to be an emotionally abusive asshole who encourages his brother’s affections for Ashara Dayne only to turn around and immediately seduce her. Why would Ned build a tomb against tradition for the latter?  

Does Godric Borrell name the fisherman’s daughter as Wylla? Because it seems to me Godric is talking about a different person entirely — a common girl from the Sisters, not a handmaiden/wet nurse from Dorne.
And even if Wylla’s name was known, there are other reasons this would be so. It’s likely she traveled to Winterfell with Ned and Jon, as Jon would have needed a wet nurse for the journey, and Catelyn notes that there was an unnamed wet nurse with Jon and Ned when she first arrived at Winterfell. If Ned was putting about that Jon’s nurse was his mother, you’d better believe Cat would have known the girl’s name.

Yes, Ned’s reaction to hearing Ashara’s name was unusually intense. Ashara is a sensitive topic amidst a shitstorm of sensitive topics. Ned has just returned from war with three bodies to bury (father, brother, and sister), a bastard son whose identity he must protect, a wife he doesn’t fully know, the shame of having killed a great knight he respected (Arthur Dayne), the likely belief that a woman he loved is dead on account of news he himself delivered, and knowing that sharing any of this with his wife — that he and his brother were both in love with a dead girl a continent away — would hurt her more than it would help. 
Considering the amount of stress Ned was under at the time, and considering that he doesn’t know Catelyn, and in his grief likely does not want discuss a complicated and terribly sad topic like Ashara Dayne, his angry outburst seems pretty explicable to me.

I still disagree that it’s emotionally abusive for Brandon to make a play at a girl who is not interested in his brother. Yes, he encouraged Ned to give it a go. Ned and Ashara had a dance. If Ashara then decided she’d rather be involved with Brandon, that’s Ned’s loss. If Brandon encouraged Ned to make a move while planning all along to seduce Ashara himself, that’s one thing, but it doesn’t seem that that’s what happened.

Claiming that “honor doesn’t explain Brandon’s tomb at all” doesn’t give reasons for why you think so.
It seems perfectly logical to me that if Ned was constructing tombs for his father and sister, it would be a bit scandalous not to make one for his brother as well. After all, if Brandon had died minutes after Rickard, rather than minutes before, he would technically have died as Lord of Winterfell and merited his own tomb regardless.

TL;DR: My main point is that I think Ned was certainly interested in Ashara — probably much the way Barristan Selmy was — but that I don’t agree that Ashara necessarily reciprocated his feelings, and I don’t think her reciprocation is necessary to explain Ned’s feeling and actions.

He names her Wylla, but describes her as a fisherman’s daughter, but I think that point to Ned being very happy to spread a cover-story around. He doesn’t try to clamp down on Wylla’s name being thrown around the way he does with Ashara.

I still think in dramatic terms it works better for Ned tore up about “the woman whose shadow lay between them” if she was his lover than his brother’s ex.

We’re just going to have to agree to disagree about the emotionally abusive thing – especially if you know someone who’s normally rather introverted and shy feels this way, to encourage them to go above and beyond what they would normally do, and then sleep with that person the same night (and it seems pretty open if Ser Barristan found out about it), seems like you don’t really care about how they feel or how your actions affect them.

The reason why I don’t think honor applies is that honor isn’t a catchall term for “nice” or “good.” It refers to adhering to a code of public behavior and the way in which you are held in repute or disrepute for that behavior. Building a tomb for his father is traditional – not doing it would probably be considered disreputable, as you’re showing disrespect for your father and predecessor. But there was no expectation that Ned would build a tomb for either sibling – that was above and beyond the code, so it would be more motivated by how he felt about each sibling. And I don’t think he’d do that if he hated his sibling.

As for the reciprocity – her family believes it to have been reciprocated, and to me that’s the strongest evidence. Especially when the alternative is often couched in frankly sexist logic about how all women prefer bad boys.