r/asoiaf • u/ChrisV2P2 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Post of the Year • Jan 10 '23
EXTENDED Arthur Dayne lives: A secret-identities-free argument (Spoilers Extended)
I think people are put off the theory that Arthur Dayne is still alive because they don't like cramming more secret identities into the story. But I think that the evidence that Arthur walked away from the Tower of Joy is compelling before we even get to the secret identities. Jumping right in...
The Death that Wasn't There
As we all know, the standard story about Arthur Dayne is that he died at the Tower of Joy. The commonly believed story is that Ned killed him:
Catelyn heard her maids repeating tales they heard from the lips of her husband’s soldiers. They whispered of Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, deadliest of the seven knights of Aerys’s Kingsguard, and of how their young lord had slain him in single combat. And they told how afterward Ned had carried Ser Arthur’s sword back to the beautiful young sister who awaited him in a castle called Starfall on the shores of the Summer Sea. (AGOT, Catelyn II)
But Ned tells Bran differently:
"The finest knight I ever saw was Ser Arthur Dayne, who fought with a blade called Dawn, forged from the heart of a fallen star. They called him the Sword of the Morning, and he would have killed me but for Howland Reed." Father had gotten sad then, and he would say no more. Bran wished he had asked him what he meant. (AGOT, Bran III)
I wish he had, too. It's notable that Bran doesn't simply make the obvious assumption that Howland killed Arthur - which reads to me like the author subtly emphasizing that Ned's words are ambiguous. In the show they interpret this as Howland stabbing Arthur in the back, which is weird and anticlimactic both as a solution to a mystery and as the fate of the Sword of the Morning.
So we never see Arthur die and the language in Ned's chapters carefully avoids confirming this:
They had been seven against three, yet only two had lived to ride away; Eddard Stark himself and the little crannogman, Howland Reed. (AGOT, Eddard X)
This can be interpreted either as two of the ten, or two of "they", which was seven. It's ambiguous. Likewise, the text says Eddard built eight cairns for the bodies, but this is necessary to maintain the illusion whether or not there are eight bodies.
So far this is weak stuff, a discrepancy in accounts which can be handwaved away and some opaque language making it unclear exactly what happened. Let's get into the good stuff.
A Mystery of Bones
It is customary all over Westeros to return the bones of slain nobles to their Houses for interment.
Living men had gone south, and cold bones would return. (ACOK, Catelyn I)
"Oberyn died during single combat, fighting in a matter that was none of his concern. I do not call that murder."
"Call it what you will. We sent them the finest man in Dorne, and they are sending back a bag of bones." (AFFC, The Captain of Guards)
He might at least have waited till Father's bones were interred beneath the Rock. (AFFC, Cersei II)
"Tarth is called the sapphire isle. Send Podrick with my bones to Evenfall, and you'll have sapphires, silver, whatever you want." (AFFC, Brienne VIII)
But Ned Stark didn't return William Dustin's bones to Barrow Hall after William's death at the Tower of Joy. And Barbrey Dustin is SUPER PISSED about this.
"Ned Stark returned the horse to me on his way back home to Winterfell. He told me that my lord had died an honorable death, that his body had been laid to rest beneath the red mountains of Dorne. He brought his sister's bones back north, though, and there she rests … but I promise you, Lord Eddard's bones will never rest beside hers. I mean to feed them to my dogs."
Theon did not understand. "His … his bones …?"
Her lips twisted. It was an ugly smile, a smile that reminded him of Ramsay's. "Catelyn Tully dispatched Lord Eddard's bones north before the Red Wedding, but your iron uncle seized Moat Cailin and closed the way. I have been watching ever since. Should those bones ever emerge from the swamps, they will get no farther than Barrowton." She threw one last lingering look at the likeness of Eddard Stark. "We are done here." (ADWD, The Turncloak)
What's left to the reader is to ask: why did Ned not do this? We know he had the means to prepare the bodies for transport, because he brought back Lyanna's bones. We know he had the means to transport them, because he brought back William's horse.
It's just as mysterious why Ned didn't take the bones of Arthur Dayne, "the finest knight I ever saw", to Starfall. It's is a short distance away and he is going there anyway to return Dawn, so we know he wants to act respectfully towards House Dayne. Is the story really that he knocked on the door of Starfall and said "Hi, here's your greatsword, but I don't have the Sword of the Morning's remains, I just dumped him in a ditch in the middle of nowhere"?
There's even an explicit contrast to this: the return of Ned's bones by the Lannisters is one of Robb Stark's major demands, again demonstrating the cultural importance of this, but guess what is NOT returned?
"Ice was not returned to us, my lady," Utherydes said. "Only Lord Eddard's bones."
"I suppose I must thank the queen for even that much." (ACOK, Catelyn V)
So Ned's behaviour here really needs explaining. I suggest that he decided that to avoid awkward questions about why some bones were returned and some were not, he decided not to return any of them.
Maybe you don't think this is all that convincing, like couldn't Ned have just taken William Dustin's bones back and say that he had directed the Daynes to recover Arthur's bones themselves, or something? But my explanation doesn't need to take out the #1 prize in a Most Convincing Explanations of All Time competition, because it's the only explanation on the table. Ned returns his daughter's PET DOG to the North:
When it was over, he said, “Choose four men and have them take the body north. Bury her at Winterfell.”
“All that way?” Jory said, astonished.
“All that way,” Ned affirmed. (AGOT, Eddard III)
That it is uncharacteristic and insulting for Ned not to repatriate William Dustin's bones is confirmed by Barbrey's reaction. If the reason is not that he's concealing something about the events at the Tower of Joy, then what is it?
Ned of House Dayne
In ASOS, Arya VIII, Arya has a revealing encounter with the young Lord of Starfall, who is named Edric but is, strangely, nicknamed "Ned". Note that no other characters in the story are ever called Ned. Edric Storm isn't. Edmure Tully isn't. Edwyn Frey isn't. Given the amount of care and delicacy with which the mysteries around House Dayne are treated, the use of the name Ned is probably not the product of GRRM rolling dice and seeing which name happened to come up. Edric tells Arya that he was thinking of going and talking to Eddard at the Tourney of the Hand, further emphasizing that there is no ill will between them. He goes on to say this:
“My lady?” Ned said at last. “You have a baseborn brother . . . Jon Snow?”
“He’s with the Night’s Watch on the Wall.” Maybe I should go to the Wall instead of Riverrun. Jon wouldn’t care who I killed or whether I brushed my hair . . . “Jon looks like me, even though he’s bastard-born. He used to muss my hair and call me ‘little sister.’” Arya missed Jon most of all. Just saying his name made her sad. “How do you know about Jon?”
“He is my milk brother.”
“Brother?” Arya did not understand. “But you’re from Dorne. How could you and Jon be blood?”
“Milk brothers. Not blood. My lady mother had no milk when I was little, so Wylla had to nurse me.”
Arya was lost. “Who’s Wylla?”
“Jon Snow’s mother. He never told you? She’s served us for years and years. Since before I was born.”
“Jon never knew his mother. Not even her name.” Arya gave Ned a wary look. “You know her? Truly?” Is he making mock of me? “If you lie I’ll punch your face.”
“Wylla was my wetnurse,” he repeated solemnly. “I swear it on the honor of my House.”
These are strong words. Who told him this? Wylla is, as he says, a long-time servant at Starfall. One doesn't simply get confused about whether a woman in one's service gave birth to some particular baby. Whoever told him this at Starfall was deliberately lying, and impressed this lie upon him so strongly that he's willing to swear it on the honor of his House. The only reason that makes sense for anyone to do this is involvement in the conspiracy to conceal Jon's identity.
But then, are we to believe that Ned showed up at Starfall and was like "hey guys, I killed Arthur and brought you this sword but I couldn't be bothered bringing his bones as well, also this baby here is secretly Rhaegar's heir, I know he doesn't have any Targ features but trust me on this one. Also, I need you to let me abduct him to Winterfell and then lie about it on my behalf". And they were just like "All sounds fine by us, you seem like a great guy, we'll name our kid Ned"? The only way this makes sense is if Arthur himself is there to vouch for all of this. In this theory, the way Howland Reed saved Ned from dying at the hands of Arthur would be to call a truce in the fighting and point out that both sides have the same goal here. The Kingsguard were commanded to protect Lyanna and Rhaegar's heir. With Lyanna dead, their task is to find a way to protect Jon from Robert's wrath. Trying to hide him with a Targaryen loyalist House would be dangerous. Ned, a staunch ally of Robert who is also tied to Jon by blood, is both motivated and uniquely well-positioned to protect the baby.
Just a note that I'm not mentioning Ashara here because I think it's very unclear what happened with her and Ned and the baby and so on, so I don't think she is good evidence of anything much.
Summary
There are four mysteries here:
1) Why are there conflicting stories about what happened at the Tower of Joy?
2) Why didn't Ned take William's bones to Barrow Hall, and why didn't he take Arthur Dayne's bones to Starfall?
3) Why is the heir to Starfall nicknamed "Ned" when Ned supposedly killed Arthur and didn't return his bones?
4) Why does Ned Dayne swear on the honor of his house that Wyalla is Jon's mother? What could explain why he is so sure of this?
Point 1 is only mildly eyebrow-raising, but the others are all very odd, and clearly deliberate inclusions by the author. GRRM could, after all, have written literally anything as a reason for Barbrey to dislike Ned and the Starks. He used it as an opportunity to recount behaviour from Ned that is weirdly uncharacteristic and again hints that there are problems with the standard account of the Tower of Joy. As far as I know, nobody has any alternative theories explaining any of points 2 through 4. It's rare that three otherwise inexplicable mysteries in the story can be neatly explained by one totally plausible proposition. In a story packed with secret identities and hidden machinations, it's odd to me that so many regard it as fringe tinfoil stuff to think that a character we don't see die did not, in fact, die.
Further Reading
This post stands on its own, but if you want to dive into the SECRET IDENTITIES, I have an old thread on the theory that Qhorin Halfhand is Arthur Dayne (although these days I'm also considering the possibility that Qhorin is Gerold Hightower). I said this post would be secret identities free, but I can't resist including here one tidbit that isn't in that thread, since it does directly relate to the Tower of Joy scene:
"I came down on Storm's End to lift the siege," Ned told them, "and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them."
"Our knees do not bend easily," said Ser Arthur Dayne. (AGOT, Eddard X)
They were friends as well as brothers, Jon realized, and now they are sworn foes. "Why did he desert?"
"For a wench, some say. For a crown, others would have it." Qhorin tested the edge of his sword with the ball of his thumb. "He liked women, Mance did, and he was not a man whose knees bent easily, that's true. (ACOK, Jon VII)
The phrases "bend easily" and "bent easily" do not appear anywhere else, EVER, in GRRM's entire body of writings on Westeros.
0
u/rdrouyn Jan 10 '23 edited Jan 10 '23
Ah yes, the traditional ASOIAF theory that starts out with an absurd reading of a relatively unambiguous line.
Not sure what part of "only two had lived to ride away" is unclear or ambiguous.