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I continue to discuss a very dark possibility: Rhaegar orders Arthur Dayne to cut the baby from Lyanna's womb with his sword. I don't like this theory, you don't like this theory, so please consider this collection of my web-pages as, mostly impartial, arguments for and against it. Here are my not particularly deep thoughts on how the Tower of Joy, the way it is presented on the show, doesn't quite compute. And how the darker role of Arthur Dayne in it might explain things. Feel free to read if only to see whether you agree with ToJ not making a whole lot of sense.
It could explain why Tower of Joy had to be a tower. Suppose the purpose of Kingsguard there is to ‘protect’ Lyanna. Wouldn’t they have a lookout? Somebody who looks around and warns the defenders if somebody is approaching? The Tower is apparently in mountains, on a ridge, controlling the approaches from either side of the road. Having a lookout would warn defenders well in advance. So, when we see Arthur Dayne sitting at the worst defensive position and polishing his sword… (Why is he polishing Dawn? Do falling stars need sharpening? Is it because somebody’s blood was on it?). Basically, does it make sense for Arthur to sit all day in front of the tower, polishing his sword? Wouldn’t it help to have somebody on top of the Tower?
It could explain the major ‘coincidence’ in the story so far: Arrival of Eddard’s party coinciding with Jon’s birth. If you follow my posts from two years ago, you might remember that I struggled with this issue. And perhaps suggested a completely wrong theory. Mea culpa. But what other explanations are there? The only ‘innocent’ one I can think of is: at that stage GRRM was young and naïve and didn’t pay attention to anything, so the cosmic coincidence of ‘Eddard arrives’ = ‘Lyanna delivers’ didn’t occur to him. Why not, right? Could have happened, he decided. Well, I doubt it.
Well, let’s see how things would look like under our Hypothesis. There is a lookout at the top of the tower, because it makes a lot of tactical sense. The lookout warns Arthur well in advance. Arthur executes order 66: to cut away the fetus from Lyanna. His sword is bloodied. He comes downstairs and starts casually polishing it, just like Eddard after killing a Night’s Watch’s brother in the first chapter. Connecting Arthur and Eddard -- and there are some thematical connections between them.
Sudden burst of violence from Reed. Does the Tower of Joy scene make complete sense to you? It is not bad, it has decent fighting, and it makes some sense. But let’s look at Arthur killing a man, and then making sure he has killed the man: image, please (working on it). And that same Arthur somehow didn’t bother to check on Howard Reed. So Reed jumped on him from behind. Like in a war nobody could have jumped on a knight from behind. Right? Arthur fought in wars (references; probably - not claiming with any certainty). He fought against less than ‘honorable’ opponents. And he didn’t see Reed coming?
You could argue that Reed is from the Neck where they are good at treachery and dirty tricks and ‘playing dead’. Perhaps. Remember, ultimately I am with you and I want this Hypothesis to be disproved and forgotten. It is just for now I am honor-bound to ask: does the Tower of Joy make sense to you?
You have a party of seven. You approach the Location. Your goal is to rescue a high-value target. Rescue, not search-and-destroy. What would you expect your opposition to do, if they have any sense? Think about it… Right: to keep the high-value target hostage. Do what we tell you, or we kill Lyanna. They, Eddard and Co, approach it assuming there is a bunch of evil guys keeping Lyanna hostage. (Because otherwise why not talk first?) Why wouldn’t the Bad Guys use Lyanna as a human shield? Because what? Because, suppose Eddard says: sure, kill her, we don’t care? Right… I mean traditional argument against holding a hostage is what if the attackers say: kill, we don’t care, and then the defenders have no protection. And doom the hostage and themselves. But in this situation, the defenders nearly killed the attackers anyway. So, one more time. You are Eddard approaching ToJ. You expect your sister to be held hostage. You can not go: OK, kill her I don’t care. (Because a) you do care and b) even if the defenders lose their human shield they are still good enough to simply kill you and your party, so they don’t even need a hostage.)
Knowing that disposition, what is a reasonable course of action? To send forth a reconnaissance mission to gather information. What do you have to lose? If suddenly the defenders attack you, you still outnumber them six to three. One person away wouldn’t make that much of a difference. What do you have to gain? A lot: including the status of your objective – is Lyanna here? Is she held hostage? Etc. Who is the best candidate for the reconnaissance mission? Howard Reed, that’s who (sneaky, not bulky, doesn’t matter if captured as he is not the best fighter in the party, etc.).
What does Howard Reed find? He finds Lyanna in her bed of blood with a wound on her side. What does HR do? He loses his mind. Honor and everything be damned, he needs to find whoever did this and kill him. Well, we still have an issue of how Arthur didn’t hear or expect HR coming for him, but imagine now that HR is really in berserk mode. Somebody he knew (see Laughing Tree Knight story), a friend of his, perhaps somebody who he loved is dying with a sword wound at her side. (Wound in her side is not an assumption; the connection, hopefully wrong, with Arthur Dayne is.) Best knight or not, Howard is going to kill him. In video game terms, HR gets a boost of +5, a bonus roll just high enough to kill the best knight ever in a sneak attack from behind.