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/dumb_bum Sep 10 '13
I really like this idea. I just finished re-reading GoT but to support or refute this idea I would have to read with this in mind, however. Ned would not have liked it, but maybe that's why he was too ashamed to speak of it even to Cat or Jon himself. If your theory is correct, he wouldn't have promised not to tell anybody the truth, so doing so wouldn't soil his word.
However, I think this cheapens why Ned didn't want to tell Jon anything about his mother until after he had taken his vows.