Author: stevenattewell

Do you think Benjen ever knew or suspected the that Jon was not actually Ned’s bastard?

goodqueenaly:

Yes, I do. More than suspected, in fact: I think Benjen, while not (obviously) present for Jon’s conception or birth, was actively involved in facilitating Lyanna’s running away to meet with Rhaegar. Not that I think this alone forced him to join the Night’s Watch – I could see where it was always ordained that third son Benjen would go to the Watch (much like third son Waymar Royce), to avoid the sort of Stark dynastic infighting which I believe Lord Rickard’s own marriage was designed to limit – but that certainly Benjen has carried with him the secret of Jon’s parentage for the better part of two decades.

Essentially, what I think happened is that Lyanna spent the roughly year between Harrenhal and her “abduction" trying to think of a way to meet the crown prince (assuming they had agreed to meet again in a year at the tourney, which I think they did) and thus get out of her upcoming marriage to Robert. After the shocking end to the tourney at Harrenhal, Lord Rickard and/or her overseer in the Stark household would probably have kept a strict eye on her, lest further scandal attach itself to Lyanna and her betrothal risk being cancelled. She could hardly tell ambitious Rickard about Rhaegar’s proposal, or hotheaded Brandon, or she’d be certain of never seeing the crown prince again. Quiet and kind brother Ned might have been helpful, but he would have been back in the Eyrie, and she could hardly trust the bombshell idea of running away with the married prince to a raven, or the maesters who would be handling it.

But then there was little Benjen. Ben, who had been her childhood playmate, dueling with her in Winterfell’s godswood against the wishes of Lord Rickard. Ben, who had been so helpful with Howland at Harrenhal – finding the crannogman a suitable outfit for the great feast, and offering to scour up a horse and armor for young Reed – and in all likelihood had helped Lyanna piece together a makeshift suit of armor to joust. Baby Ben, no more than an adolescent or young teenager – old enough to understand her situation, but not old enough to do anything consequential the way Rickard or Brandon could to stop it. Benjen would be able to help her.

So what I think happened is that Lyanna explained to Benjen what she and Rhaegar had discussed at Harrenhal, and Benjen – eager to help his fiercely determined older sister and playmate, especially if she emphasized how unhappy she felt being forced to marry Robert – agreed to assist her escape. Benjen would cover for Lyanna, stalling for time while she put all her horsemanship to the test and rode like hell for Harrenhal. But, of course, nothing went exactly as Lyanna planned, and I could see where Benjen felt a tremendous amount of guilt for helping her; if only he hadn’t, maybe Rickard wouldn’t have been burned alive, or Brandon strangled, or Lyanna herself died in a faraway tower in the lonely Red Mountains.

I don’t know if Ned and Benjen ever explicitly talked about Jon’s true parentage, particularly in the time between Ned returning from the war and Benjen taking the black, but I wouldn’t be surprised that, even without an explicit conversation, Benjen would have come to the conclusion. Lyanna tells him about her plans to marry Rhaegar; Lyanna disappears with Rhaegar to the south; many months later his famously honorable brother comes home, having brought with him a northern-looking baby whose official story is that he is Ned’s son. The implications of the truth of the baby’s parentage would be enormously dangerous – the last child of the dead Targaryen crown prince, alive and safe in defiance of the new Baratheon regime – and so while others might have easily swallowed Ned’s cover story, Benjen, one of the very few who knew the truth about Rhaegar and Lyanna, might have been deeply suspicious, understanding why Ned would want to hide the truth. (Of course, he and Ned might well have talked about it – Benjen feeling he needed to unburden himself to someone and Ned, who had seen Lyanna die, would be the only one who could understand, or Ned thinking his sole remaining brother could handle this profoundly dangerous truth.)

So yes, I very much believe Benjen knows Jon is the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna.

Just to add some mental math on a minor point that @goodqueenaly and I were talking about on messenger: 

I’m not sure “Lyanna spent the roughly year between Harrenhal and her “abduction" because I’m not sure it was that long. (Thanks, btw, to LiveFirstDieLater from Westeros.org for help on this.)

So, we know that Rhaegar and Elia are married in 280, and Rhaenys is born the same year (WOIAF), this means that at the very earliest Rhaenys is born in “September” of 280. We know that “after the birth of Princess Rhaenys, her mother had been bedridden for half a year.” (ADWD)

And since Elia was present at the Tourney of Harrenhal, since “Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife.” So at the very earliest, the Tourney of Harrenhal could have happened in April, although given Elia’s health I’m going to say it’s probably closer to June.

We also know that Rhaegar and Lyanna disappeared very early in 281: “with the coming of the new year, the crown prince had taken to the road with half a dozen of his closest friends and confidants, on a journey that would ultimately lead him back to the riverlands.”

So I don’t think it was any longer than six months and could well have been later, depending on the whole “False Spring” thing. It may have been as short as two months. 

To Wage War Episide 6 – Revolution!

hiddenhistoryofwesteros:

warsofasoiaf:

1302, Franco-Flemish War. The Flemish tradesmen, angered by high taxes and contempt of French feudal leadership, rise up against King Phillip IV. Can the urban population of Flanders use their militia training against the flower of French chivalry? Changes in equipment, tactics, and the importance of social class come to a head on the muddy fields outside of Courtrai.

RSS: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:284114704/sounds.rss

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-45347402/towagewarepisode6

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RhocHyGG2A

-SLAL

Look @racefortheironthrone, the smallfolk do win some times! Pretty cool, eh?

Indeed, and thank you for reminding me to reblog this.

This is one of my favorite medieval battles, precisely because it’s one of the few cases where Team Smallfolk gets to chalk one up in the Win column. 

And people should be interested in it for reasons that go beyond modern Flemish nationalism. 

moonlitgleek:

Can somebody please explain to me what breaking the wheel even means? They keep throwing out that phrase without ever telling us what they actually want to do. It’s all vague but apparently breaking the wheel is better so we should root for it. Also, Aegon Targaryen built the wheel, but what Dany is trying to do isn’t at all different from what Aegon did so, what are they talking about again?

It’s incredibly vague. It refers in some way to the Westerosi power structure, at least as it was organized under the Targaryens and since, although whether that’s the Iron Throne or monarchy period or feudalism period is unclear.

We did actually get our first actual hint as to what it might mean when Tyrion suggested shifting to an elective monarchy. Maybe “breaking the wheel” = constitutional monarchy? 

a question of the hypotetical united free cities(often called New Valyria). Volantis is generally brought up as the one best suited to unite the city states beneath one banner. but isnt volantis in a terrible logistical position to do so? its FAR from any of the other cities, it only shares borders with myr and lys, between it and Norvos, Pentos and Qohor is unocolonized land without roads, like Qohor, it shares direct borders with dothraki lands. given these terrible disadvantages why Volantis?

Because it was the biggest and strongest and the only one who wanted to, back in the day. 

a question about building an iron making economy on the iron isles. is it better to choose one of the biggest mines on each of the isles, then centralize all the economic development around it; drasticly expand the mine, build a town around it, create a great harbor, all future roads on the islands go the settlement, etc. or is it better to just expand on all the mines, just to a much smaller degree so you have a ton of smaller mines instead of one massively developed one?

Depends where the ore is, I suppose. And I think the bigger issue is one of human capital – can you get enough good ironsmiths and tinsmiths (because tin actually has a good amount of commercial value, and the Iron Islands can’t afford to underutilize resources) – and capital capital. Given the cultural baggage of the gold price vs. the iron price, where do you get enough merchants with the capital to not only finance production of iron and tin goods, but also the capital and connection to handle the transportation and marketing and distribution?