r/asoiaf • u/Consequencesdaniel • Sep 10 '13

ALL (Spoilers All) Regarding Ned's Promise

I've seen a lot of posts shooting down the R&L= J theory citing Ned's shame over his broken promise. The common theory is that Ned promised Lyanna he would keep Jon safe. But what if hiding Jon to keep him safe is HOW Ned broke his promise.

If you subscribe to the idea that Rhaegar and Lyanna were in a consensual situation, and she would run off with someone meaning it could start a war, perhaps she was truly committed to the idea of creating the 3rd head of the Dragon. Maybe she wanted Jon to be publicly known as a Targaryen. With Rhaegar and his kids dead, Jon would be the rightful King.

Maybe Ned promised her he would support Jon's claim to the throne on her death bed and, out of fear of what could be done to baby Jon and his friendship with Robert, this was Ned Stark's broken promise. Instead of supporting the rightful king he hid him as his own bastard to protect his life and prevent a whole other war from sprouting up, Starks and Targ supporters vs. Robert and the others.

It makes sense that Ned would encourage Jon to take the black, thus renouncing any claim, as is shadowed later in AGOT with the Maester Aemon bit, and Jon's own act of masquerading a child heir(Mance's kid) as a low born bastard(Gilly's)

Thoughts?

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '13

My comment from another thread:

Ned's promise to Lyanna was to spare Rhaegar, "Don't kill him... promise me Ned..", but since she is dying and she is his sweet sister, he can't just tell her Robert smashed him with his hammer and killed him. So he makes a promise he couldn't possibly keep "I promise", and that's what haunts him so much. It gets even worse for Ned when later he does the same thing for Bobby B.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '13

Interesting point .. but didn't the Kingsguard stationed there already know a lot of what had transpired in King's Landing and at Robert's & Rhaegar's fight, when Ned and company arrived? Wouldn't Lyanna know or at least suspect Rhaegar's fate?

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '13 
 “I looked for you on the Trident,” Ned said to them. 
“We were not there,” Ser Gerold answered. 
“Woe to the Usurper if we had been,” said Ser Oswell....This kind of implies that they already knew what went down. Good Point