ASOIAF: Barbrey Dustin & Jon Snow's Father ("Abandoned Foreshadowing" in the Plot).

this video is not presenting a theory
that I believe in this is not presenting an interpretation of the text that I feel must be true or ought to be true it's discussing a possibility that's placed within the text that George might or might not choose to act on so now I have to insert a sort of caveat if you don't know George's writing of the Song of Ice and Fire series he's in large part improvised he made a decision as an artist at an early stage that he was not going to fully script out or fully plan these books that he was going to make up as he went along many fundamental aspects of the plot now people knew that for decades for years and years and years he had commented on it in interviews he had written about it in articles or in blogs but nevertheless people were shocked when there was a leaked version of an early plan for the books the original proposal that went to the publishing company that you seem to reflect a totally different scheme totally different concept of what the books would be including most shockingly may have heard this the the plans of that stage included plans for a romance between Jon Snow and Arya Stark now when you know that and you go back and look at book 1 as it was printed in its final form you can still see bits and pieces of that plan for the plot you can still see some echos some foreshadowing that there could have been a romance between Jon Snow and Arya when RA I got a few years older whatever um that was part of the plan for the book now when you're done being grossed out what you have to recognize is throughout all of the books there is foreshadowing that in a sense for shadows nothing because they reflect ideas that the author picked up played with for a while and then sat down decided not to act on now I'm not saying this as a complaint I actually do not think it weakens the Song of Ice and Fire as a work of literature I think what it means is that as a reader you encounter a lot of ideas that are set down in the text and presented to you simply as ideas for your interest and you cannot look at them as if they're bricks in a wall as if their support and edifice in some strictly logical way that follows a kind of boring plot pattern that has a beginning a middle and an end if you really believe that then it's an absurd example but it's a real one you have to look at John snows relationship with Aria in book 1 is foreshadowing something which we all know now it's is never gonna happen um there's a lot of foreshadowing for different possible explanations for John snows parentage um I think it's quite possible that one of the reasons why you have multiple competing possibilities is that George himself hadn't decided entirely what direction you might want to take it at now yes it's also true from the Buddhist perspective it's there so that there are multiple possibilities just to entertain you they're just different ideas to to pique your interest that's completely true objectively as a reader that's true but subjectively for the author in that creative process which he has been honest with us about he's also all the time setting up interesting ideas that he can later play with in the plot or he can choose not to play with one of the possibilities right now that people are excited about because the television show plot has moved faster than the book plot it has always been possible it has always been possible that Cersei had a first child before the three children that we see on the TV show that she had a first child that survived and was raised in secret and could reenter the plot and then it was also possible that her secret child is Gendry who we know you know as a young adult on the TV show I guess he's a teenager in the books but on the TV show he's like a fully grown man whatever it said that cast it but in the books he's a young blacksmith okay that possibility was definitely put in the text by george RR martin when he put it there I don't think he had an absolute firm notion of what he would do with it he put some kind of provocative vague suggestions into the text and I think again just based on his own statement about his creative process he could take it in one direction or another now when I was talking about this with my with my teacher here on China I remember she was completely shocked at that when I said oh yeah you know you know it's quite possible that Gendry is actually the the son of Cersei Lannister that his biological mother is seriously she was shocked she was totally totally shocked and I said yeah you know both in the book and in the TV show if you pay really close attention that possibility is actually established but that's all it is it's a possibility you know and the author may not act on it and when he first you know put those pieces on the board he may not have had any firm idea of what he wanted to do with them okay um you know I under that heading some people think this is crazy but as a work of literature a Song of Ice and Fire contains so much criticism of the the basic assumptions basic social beliefs of feudalism such an attack on notions of bloodline as well as notions of justice so many of the fundamental beliefs that hold together fuel society are held up to scorn and contempt and ridicule and satire and questioning by George Martin by the author it is really possible that we will have a complex story presented to us about Jon Snow but then we will find out that the babies were switched at one point in the in the story and that somewhere else somewhere unknown to us as readers there's a white-haired baby growing up you know as a miller's son or on a farm doing some normal job somewhere else there's the other Jon Snow and the Jon Snow we've known in this plot doesn't have any connection by bloodline to House Targaryen we thought he did but they switched the babies now if you've read the books you know there is foreshadowing for that possibility because there is so much talk about switching babies and Jon Snow himself finds himself in a political situation in which he chooses to secretly switch to babies there are several other plot lines involving babies being switched so would I come on here and say to you that I know for a fact or that I think it must be the case that Jon Snow as a baby was switched at birth no that's ridiculous I would say not only is it impossible for me to know that base syntax I don't think George Martin writing in the style that he writes using the creative process I don't think he would have known himself I think George set up that possibility and it's one of many possibilities that again they're there for the reader to enjoy as different ideas and they're also in a sense there for him to enjoy because to a remarkable extent he's making it up as he goes along there is an improvised character to these books some people get uncomfortable or get defensive when you talk about that I don't think there's any reason to be defensive on it that is part of the the style of this remarkable work of literature okay Barbara Dustin tells us a number of things that actually forced us to re-evaluate the whole plot the whole basic family scenario for House Stark I'm gonna to make things simpler I'm gonna refer to Ned Stark's older brother just as his older brother because some people watching this will be very confused if I use names but on the TV show it's not really clear to you Ned Stark was not supposed to inherit power he was not supposed to inherit political authority he only inherited it because his older brother died in unexpected and untimely death a violent gruesome death and if you're reading the books watch the TV show really on if you're reading in a critical way and you've an appreciation for how critical the author's mind is George RR Martin's mind you start wondering why does everyone pretend that Ned Stark is such a great guy why why is he this paragon of virtue you know he seems okay but he seems human he doesn't seem like the greatest ruler a political figure in the land and pretty soon we see him making mistakes making the wrong decisions making questionable political decisions um even the execution that we see at the very start of the books the iconic execution that you know bran and the other children witness you know there are questions you know Ned Stark doesn't seem to the reader this paragon of virtue thinking reading it in order you start to figure out early on okay so Ned is seen as a paragon of virtue compared to people like Joffrey Ned is seen as a paragon of virtue compared to house Bolton there are these other houses that seem remarkably dark and evil and dubious and now we start to see okay Ned so Ned who's already died in the plot by this point when you're really getting this evidence okay so it's not that Ned is the you know is is the greatest ruler or the greatest political figure it's not that Ned had a perfect sense of justice but he was better than the alternatives okay you get this version then Barbary Dustin shows up so many years into your reading depending on how many years you took to read the books or so many hundreds of pages and Barbary Dustin gives us another consideration maybe Ned seemed like an outstanding positive figure politically in contrast to his own older brother right senedd Zolder brother who would have become the ruler if he hadn't died in ludicrous surreal circumstances not even worth describing here if you guys don't know most people watching this video already know the story some of you said me talk but what George did what the author did George Martin did brilliantly he didn't describe how terrible a person Ned's older brother was by giving us the perspective of someone who hated him instead he lets us figure out how terrible this older brother was from the perspective of someone who loved him and someone who still carries a torch for him namely Barbara Dustin that is brilliant writing as a brilliant choice and even more striking he has her delivering this monologue as Barbara Dustin explaining this to someone who doesn't question her in any way it's you know it's Theon Greyjoy but it's Theon when he's really in a very mentally broken state he's not gonna cross-examine her or call her hypocrite or anything else Theon is almost mute in in listening to this the small he says a few things so this is brilliant and I think some people may pass the scene by without realizing its gravity and its significance for the plot rape is a significant theme throughout all these books the fear of rape in war the significance of rape in peacetime the way rape shapes and reshapes the futile alliances and marriages and the way rape fits into the ethics of Knightly valor the difference between a knight and a soldier the difference between being civilized and being barbaric rape is a is a really significant theme okay what Barbary Dustin tells us with no ambiguity was that Ned Stark's older brother was a serial rapist she does not use terms that damning but it is completely clear from her testimony that Ned Stark's older brother whenever he was attracted to somebody would immediately rape them and this is very serious now this links to another major plot thread that some of you may not know about but some of you've known about for years the fact that Robb Stark's father was not Ned but was Ned's older brother once you know what Barbary Dustin has told you then you can go back and look at Caitlyn Tully's plotline Catelyn Tully who becomes Catelyn Stark who becomes lady still hard so the mother of most of the stark children it's very clear that Catelyn had sex with Ned's older brother prior to having sex with Ned and for all kinds of reasons it's not that surprising if you go through you know the arrangements to be married and then the arrangements had to be changed that's it's not surprising but it's completely clear that prior to legally marrying her Ned's older brother you know raped this young woman or she didn't have a choice in the matter the same way Ned's older brother raped Barbra Dustin and then you go back and you can look at exactly what Catelyn says when she's looking at her children when she's looking at Rob in contrast to her other kids and you know she says these kids look like Ned and this kid looks like it's father some of the wording is very carefully chosen by George just to leave that possibility it may never be acted on the books may end without another word ever being said about Catelyn Tully his love life you know prior to her marriage with Ned or otherwise we the door may never be closed on it those pieces may have been put on the chess board so that as he was writing the books Georgia the possibilities there is a provocative idea it's there as an interesting idea for the reader at stimulating but it may go nowhere it may be foreshadowing nothing and it it also may have foreshadowed a plot that was abandoned right because well in the earlier drafts of the book Catelyn was supposed to go north of the wall right she was supposed to go up to the far north and fight the others and die that's in the earlier draft that got lead so all kinds of very very different ideas for the plot have been entertained by George and a lot of them been abandoned so the fact that these things are there doesn't mean they matter for what happens next in the plot but they still matter as ideas they still matter fanatically okay so Barbara Dustin lays down what should be the shocking revelation that Ned Stark's older brother was really a terrible human being and you know this makes sense it draws together so many of the little bits information we already knew about Ned Stark's older older brother um we knew about him you know marching to the capital city and shouting at the king's castle net stars a liberal they literally stood in the streets with his sword shouting that he wanted to murder the crown prince that's what that was the crime he committed and surprise surprise Ned Stark's a liberal herb was executed for this what a shock Oh in any futile medieval society the fact that this was the the punishment for his conduct is not it's not surprising I know people call the Mad King they call him the Mad King they call him bad names that particular decision in that political and legal context is not that surprising and now we learn he wasn't just impetuous about threatening to murder members of the royal family in the streets the capital city in front of the well in fact um he was also a serial rapist he was impetuous in these other ways right so right away this opens up other possibilities now look it is possible that the candy-coated story of John Stark having magical Targaryen blood is the whole story and that's it but you guys know George George plays by his own rules and you know appearance is hereditary in the books in a way that's convenient it really is possible that along with the the baby switching motif that will find out that yeah you know what Leanna did give birth to a baby that had white hair or you know at least violet eyes or some of the other distinctive Targaryen vision it's just it's not John baby's got switched to that baby is somewhere else maybe that baby was left in Dorne there all these other possibilities set up and that would suit George Aaron's overall thematic concerns that really is I think a possibility may not be a possible attack Taedong or maybe hinted at in the book and never resolved all these things can remain open and and undecided but the other possibility is that John Starks bloodline is a hundred and ten percent northern which is both how he looks and also relates to the type of magic uses John doesn't have dragon magic John seems to have a double dose of the distinctive magic of the far north the skin changing ability etc right there have been no indications unlike say Tyrion there's no indication that John has dragon dreams you know exactly what kind of dreams John has you know exactly what kind of magical abilities Jonah's so it does set up the real possibility that among the victims of John star sorry of among the victims of Eddard Starks older brother who we now know to be a violent serial rapists and we know this from the perspective of our boy Dustin it is possible that among his victims was Lyanna stark so if Lyanna stark was pregnant because she was raped in this fashion that we have other witnesses too and what have you then suddenly we have a very different motivation both for her escaping Winterfell for her running away which is the basic fact of the story we know about and her seeking the help and protection of the Targaryen family we also have a very different explanation for why her brother would suddenly run away suicidally run away to the capital city threatening to murder the crown prince's idiotic mix to call it a crime of passion is an insult to crimes of passion right so there's several other possibilities set up by Barbra Dustin barber Dustin tells us she has a network of spies she has her own army in her own spies she tells us she's not gonna let a certain decapitated head reach Winterfell she's not gonna let certain bones and remains reach Winterfell she tells us that she said for a revenge but at this stage the story in fact she's already had a revenge it's very unclear what she's gonna do next there's quite a lot to speculate on and interestingly what was it Robb Stark's the captain head is supposed to be joined the capital city so some people theorized that Robb Stark's head was actually put on top of the mountains body in making gregor clegane into an undead monster in the books of his son on the TV show but the remains of Ned Stark they were supposed to be going north to Winterfell Barbary Dustin is supposedly stolen them all kinds of crazy questions arise from this so there's a lot there there's a lot of material there again my point in this video is not to say I have the correct interpretation nobody else does I think that Jorge sets up myriad possibilities very intentionally to make the books more intellectually stimulating and to make his own creative process more rewarding but the result is there's a lot of foreshadowing for things that are never going to happen and there are a lot of things introduced that are thematically significant but that will never be significant for the plot