#Daemon Targaryen is not the love child of Ned Stark Robb and Jon Snow like... HELP! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moonlitgleek · 6 years

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hi sam, love your blog xx why do you think ned didnt ask robert to legitimise jon snow - ik it probably has something to do with r+l=j but is there another reason? also couldn’t ned have told catelyn and jon about jon’s real parents and saved all 3 of them a lot of grief? how do you think that would have changed ned and jon’s relationship thank u in advance xxx

Greetings anon and thank you!

why do you think ned didnt ask robert to legitimise jon snow - ik it probably has something to do with r+l=j but is there another reason?

This is a nonstarter for multiple reasons. For one, Jon’s bastardy affords him a great deal of protection since etiquette prevents questions about his parentage to emerge because it is considered rude to pry into the origin of natural children. It’s normal for men to father bastards in Westeros so no one blinks at Ned claiming that he did; in fact it’s treated as a piece of juicy gossip.But if he was to attempt to legitimize Jon, he’d invite scrutiny onto Jon and himself since many would rightly wonder why he being so unorthodox with his bastard son. It would definitely draw Robert’s attention to Jon which is something Ned actively wanted to avoid. He really didn’t need Robert or Jon Arryn looking too close at Jon’s origins.

On a personal note, such at attempt would annihilate Ned’s relationship with Catelyn. Legitimizing Jon hurts Cat on a deep personal level because she loves Ned and was already haunted by the thought that he loved another so deeply that he defied social norms for her child. Ned also loves Catelyn and the inherent callousness towards her in the act of legitimizing Jon would not only trash the loving relationship they had, but would probably reverberate through the entire family as his children with her were caught between their love for their brother and father, and their love for their mother.This irrevocably messes the family dynamic and would come at the cost of several familial relationships.

As far as the politics of this goes, it should be noted that acts of legitimization are rare enough in Westeros and when they do happen, it’s almost always in cases where there is no direct heir to a house and succession is unclear. It is almost unheard of for a lord to legitimize a bastard child when he has living legitimate children and the one case where that happened with Aegon IV’s decree to naturalize all his bastard children led to the Blackfyre rebellions and generations of war. Which makes for an extremely disconcerting example that bred a sociopolitical disinclination to legitimize bastards, especially in the presence of trueborn siblings. It is one thing to demand that Catelyn put up with Jon’s presence in Winterfell but it’s another thing entirely to make such a public statement about how much Ned favors him (to the possible detriment of his other children) and elevate him to where he could easily endanger Catelyn’s own children. Cat was already concerned about Jon’s prospective danger and had the Blackfyres in mind, it certainly would not help if Jon drew such a direct parallel to Daemon Blackfyre through his legitimization and if she has to contend with legitimate questions about what kind of message this might send to Ned’s bannermen or whether this was a prelude to Jon supplanting Robb. One only needs to look to Cat’s reaction to Robb’s decision to legitimize Jon for an idea of how badly she’d react to such a move from Ned. Those were concerns she lived with for years, since she came to the North as a not-sure-footed outsider with her Riverrrun-born, Tully-looking son only to find a Stark-looking baby already installed in Winterfell.

couldn’t ned have told catelyn and jon about jon’s real parents and saved all 3 of them a lot of grief?

It is not that simple, alas. This is a very dangerous secret that Ned has to be very careful with. As he reflects…

Some secrets are safer kept hidden. Some secrets are too dangerous to share, even with those you love and trust.

He is not wrong here. I’ve always thought that Jon deserved to know the truth, especially before he could be allowed to sign his life away to the Night’s Watch, but I can see where Ned is coming from. The more people know about this, the more danger to Jon is and the more Ned risks exposure. Also, this is information that directly puts anyone privy to it in danger too. It’s safer for everyone to keep this secret to himself.

Of course, we can’t talk about the possibility of telling anyone without taking Ned’s mental and emotional state into account. Revealing the truth means that Ned would have to work through a lot of psychological issues at a much faster pace that he was shown to be capable of, in a society that has no grasp on things like trauma or how to help someone work through it. More relevant, perhaps, is the question of how that reveal might or might not change the state of affairs in Winterfell since revealing Jon’s parentage is often accredited with being a relatively easy fix to what issues arose from Jon’s presence there. Personally, I think that telling Catelyn the truth is a monumentally bad idea. It would certainly go a long way in alleviating Jon’s internalized shame that was born out of Ned’s refusal to identify or even talk about his mother, and in easing Catelyn’s hurt over Ned’s supposed infidelity, but this reveal has plenty of political ramifications that makes it almost impossible for Ned to tell Catelyn the truth. Keep in mind that Catelyn’s main problem with Jon wasn’t about her hurt feelings but rather about the political threat he posed to her children. The truth doesn’t mitigate the danger Jon could pose to Cat’s children, it makes it exponentially worse. Ned was committing treason by harboring Jon fully knowing that Robert’s anger would be murderous if he found out. Telling Catelyn the truth places her in a terrible position where she is either made complicit in Ned’s treason and forced to keep a secret she never signed up for (while perpetuating a threat to her own children), or she has to sacrifice both Ned and Jon to save her own children.

By telling Catelyn the truth, Ned would have placed both her and Jon in danger. Cat by involving her in Ned’s lie, and Jon by expanding the circle of those who know his identity and by making it that his life could be the price of keeping Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon safe. Indeed, Ned explicitly expresses his concern over what Catelyn’s choice would be if it came down to Jon’s life against her own children’s.

Ned thought, If it came to that, the life of some child I did not know, against Robb and Sansa and Arya and Bran and Rickon, what would I do? Even more so, what would Catelyn do, if it were Jon’s life, against the children of her body? He did not know. He prayed he never would.

Pulling back a little from the worst case scenario, it remains certain to my mind that Catelyn would not react well to the truth about Jon’s paternity. I can see her urging Ned to keep the truth from Jon lest he get any ideas about launching a campaign for the Iron Throne or any such crazy ruinous idea. I definitely think she’d actively want Jon to join the Night’s Watch to neutralize his prospective danger and she’d still want him away from Robb so that her son wouldn’t get dragged into any potential conflict involving Jon.

how do you think that would have changed ned and jon’s relationship

If Ned tells Jon the truth? Depends on when he tells him I guess. Problem is that this is not a piece of information that I can see Ned entrusting to a child. It’s too precious and too dangerous so I don’t think that Ned would gamble with Jon’s life by telling him too soon when a misplaced word at the wrong time or in front of the wrong person could expose the truth. That means that Jon would still internalize the idea that Ned was ashamed of his mother or that he abandoned her, or that she abandoned Jon. The truth also does not change the prejudice Jon faces as a bastard and would increasingly bring some horrific realizations for him. I think it’s a given that the truth would bring Jon a lot of pain and sorrow for how it distances him from the identity he spent his entire life dreaming of, and for how it “replaces” the father he loves and respects with, well, Rhaegar Targaryen. I don’t think he’d react well to the fact that Ned lied to him for so many years, but at least the truth would come from Ned himself instead of a third party like what will happen in canon. It’s a lot better for Jon to hear this from Ned and to have him there to try to mitigate the shock and the ramifications of that reveal. That could be really substantial. Ned has acted as Jon’s father his entire life and something as simple as reaffirming that, no matter his biological paternity, Ned is Jon’s father and the Starklings are his siblings would go a long way in making the truth easier for Jon. That’s extremely valuable for Jon’s emotional state.And since telling the truth means that Ned had somewhat worked through his trauma enough to tell Jon, it’s possible that he’d be willing to share some information about Lyanna which would ease Jon’s deep wounds over not knowing anything about his mother.

#asoiaf meta #asoiaf #ned stark #jon snow #catelyn stark #robert baratheon #r plus l equals j #ned as jon's father #bastards in westeros #what ifs #anon asks #ask box

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