#* muse: ashara dayne / STARFALLEN.

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* tag drop: ashara dayne.

‣ muse { ashara dayne } —  ❝ STARFALLEN. ❞ ‣ character study { ashara dayne } —  ❝ A GRAVEYARD OF STARS. ❞ ‣ isms { ashara dayne } —  ❝ IT IS THE DESTINY OF STARS TO COLLAPSE. ❞ ‣ in character { ashara dayne } —  ❝ HER HEART WAS BROKEN. ❞ ‣ aesthetic { ashara dayne } —  ❝ SEABREEZE AND STARLIGHT. ❞ ‣ physique { ashara dayne } —  ❝ HAUNTING VIOLET EYES. ❞ ‣ dynamics { ashara dayne & arthur dayne } —  ❝ LIKE THE SEA WOULD MISS SALT IF THAT WERE TAKEN AWAY. ❞ ‣ dynamics { ashara dayne & eddard stark } —  ❝ SPRING HAD COME‚ OR SO THEY THOUGHT. ❞ ‣ dynamics { ashara dayne & elia martell } —  ❝ WE DESERVED A SOFT EPILOGUE. ❞

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He did more than that. The Starks were not like other men. Ned brought his bastard home with him, and called him “son” for all the north to see. When the wars were over at last, and Catelyn rode to Winterfell, Jon and his wet nurse had already taken up residence.

That cut deep. Ned would not speak of the mother, not so much as a word, but a castle has no secrets, and 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. The Lady Ashara Dayne, tall and fair, with haunting violet eyes. It had taken her a fortnight to marshal her courage, but finally, in bed one night, Catelyn had asked her husband the truth of it, asked him to his face.

That was the only time in all their years that Ned had ever frightened her. “Never ask me about Jon,” he said, cold as ice. “He is my blood, and that is all you need to know. And now I will learn where you heard that name, my lady.” She had pledged to obey; she told him; and from that day on, the whispering had stopped, and Ashara Dayne’s name was never heard in Winterfell again. (CATELYN II, A GAME OF THRONES)

The first time we have a mention of Ashara Dayne (and Arthur!) is right at the beginning of A Game of Thrones, in Catelyn’s second chapter. While I don’t think Jon is his or Ashara’s son (there’s enough throughout the series pointing towards R+L=J), and thus Ned’s fierce devotion to keeping the secret is devotion towards his sister, that Cat doesn’t understand this way because she has no idea of the truth, I’d like to use this passage to talk about Ashara Dayne, Ned Stark, and why I find it believable that Ned was the Stark she fell for.

Catelyn is the first to name Ashara as Jon’s possible mother, but she isn’t the only one. Much farther in the book, when Ned confronts Cersei, she too will bring up Ashara Dayne, even accuse him of triggering her suicide:

“Honor,” she spat. “How dare you play the noble lord with me! What do you take me for? You’ve a bastard of your own, I’ve seen him. Who was the mother, I wonder? Some Dornish peasant you raped while her holdfast burned? A whore? Or was it the grieving sister, the Lady Ashara? She threw herself into the sea, I’m told. Why was that? For the brother you slew, or the child you stole? Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?” (EDDARD XII, A GAME OF THRONES)

Keeping Lyanna’s secret is obviously more important to Ned than anything, even his own honor. It would be more than understandable, then, if he simply let the rumor spread, if people believed Ashara to be Jon’s mother — he didn’t have to plant a rumor or invent a lie, and there should have been enough reason for people to believe it possible. This could trace back to Harrenhal, though it is difficult to tell with how little we objectively know of the Tourney.

I can see why someone like Ned wouldn’t have allowed it (it would be considered a stain on Ashara’s name, after all, and he may as well not have wanted to drag someone else into this mess); he is honorable enough that he wouldn’t want her honor to be stained like that. There may even be more personal reasons to this that still do not speak of any romantic relationship (I personally believe Ashara was likely the one to point him to Lyanna’s location; romantic or not, she has some connection to the Starks, she is the sister of one of the Kingsguard there, and Rhaegar kept Lyanna in Dorne). Then he killed her brother trying to save his sister. It would be enough reason for him to be grateful and not want her name to be used like that.

Still, I think it adds to the drama and to Ashara and Ned’s characters if they had a thing and her bastard was his. As it is said in the book itself, this doesn’t change his love for Cat in anyway; it would be something that happened before he married her, and that he certainly would choose to leave behind the moment they were wed, even if Ashara lived.

Many theorists tend to point Ashara towards Brandon considering looks and Brandon’s reputation alone. We do not know her enough to make her affirmations, but I find it awful to reduce her to “she would have picked Brandon because he was handsome where Ned was plain looking, and she was one of the most beautiful maidens in the realm”. Just because she was beautiful, she doesn’t automatically have to look for someone considered handsome. In fact, my interpretation is that the contrary might as well be true because of her looks — she was beautiful, the Tourney passages mention many people wanting to dance with her, I don’t find it unbelievable that she had more than enough men wanting to court her. She was probably used to good looking types that only wanted to bed her. Ned, quiet and too shy to even approach her directly, would more than likely stand out from the usual types that would more often approach her and I think that may have piqued her interest.

I think that her bastard being his is particularly interesting. Just like with Jon’s parentage, and how whether he is Ned’s son or Rhaegar’s isn’t enough to change his bastard status, I find it interesting that Jon being Ned’s child or not wouldn’t change the fact that he did father a bastard in spite of his honorable ways. I like that Ashara Dayne would have been interested in him, no matter that he looked plain in comparison to his brother, not in spite of but because he was quieter and gentler. Most of all, I like that she wouldn’t have been a girl deceived and charmed by a womanizer, dishonored as other characters say, but a girl that knew better than to fall for such charms, a girl that did this because she wanted to and didn’t consider it to be a dishonor regardless of what other people said.

And I think his reaction to Catelyn’s question could be because of that. That his unwillingness to let Ashara’s name be used as the mother of his bastard has a more personal reason. That this is why, instead of going with the more believable lie, a rumor already spread, he names someone else as his bastard’s mother when he has to — a less convincing lie when looked at closely, because he simply used the name of Jon’s wetnurse, who happens to come from Starfall.

“Her name was Wylla,” Ned replied with cool courtesy, “and I would sooner not speak of her.”

“Wylla. Yes.” The king grinned. “She must have been a rare wench if she could make Lord Eddard Stark forget his honor, even for an hour. You never told me what she looked like …” (EDDARD II, A GAME OF THRONES)

“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.”

“You have a House?” That was stupid; he was a squire, of course he had a House. “Who are you?”

“My lady?” Ned looked embarrassed. “I’m Edric Dayne, the … the Lord of Starfall.” (ARYA VIII, A STORM OF SWORDS)

According to Edric Dayne, Wylla has served his house since before he was born. He also names her as Jon’s mother, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since he speaks of Ashara and Ned loving each other afterwards, something he claims his aunt Allyria to have told him. Allyria isn’t likely to be old enough to know well the rebellion’s events (we do not know her age, but making a guess based on her betrothal to Beric Dondarrion and his own age, she would have been a child at best). She could be wrong, of course. I don’t think the other members of her house, like her older brother, were likely to have let her grow up believing in that if there wasn’t some truth to it.

As to Edric too naming Wylla as Jon’s mother, I think there may have been some agreement made between the Daynes and Ned to have this be the official version, perhaps after Ashara’s death (they let one of their servants go to Winterfell with Ned, Ashara could have been the one to point Ned towards Lyanna, hard to believe they didn’t know the truth). Maybe her brother didn’t want her memory to be tainted by gossip about her mothering a bastard son, and Ned would have agreed. He certainly cared enough to frighten Catelyn with the way he spoke, to make sure he knew who was whispering Ashara’s name in Winterfell, and to silence all such rumors immediately.

I like the story better because I like the tragedy of it. I like the youthful romance, I like the idea of Ashara choosing him over his more handsome brother in spite of this being what everyone expected, I like that they may have had the bastard daughter who was stillborn, I like that Ned had a bastard in spite of his honorable mindset, and that Jon is Lyanna’s and Rhaegar’s but he is also Ned’s, because just as Ned is his father, the man who raised him, Jon is the bastard he fathered and couldn’t raise. I like that  Ashara fell in love with him, that she wanted to help him find his sister in spite of Dorne being forced to be in the other side of the rebellion, I like the tragedy of how it would have placed the man she was in love with against her own brother, and how this and Elia’s death led her to this point of no return, where she thought death to be a better fate than to continue living.

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Arthur was Ashara’s favorite brother. She looked up to him, as younger siblings sometimes do, and her admiration for him at times could blind her to his faults (surely enough, I think she knew him better than many, and certainly better than those who knew only the legend — but they spent quite some time apart also, and being close to someone who was such a significant figure as Arthur, the two most common sibling reactions would be to either feel like you’re left in their shadow or to feel an immense pride of your sibling, and for Ashara it was certainly the later). She really thought the world of him.

The only person who could probably rival him in terms of how much Ashara admired them was Elia. Elia is older than she is, and graceful and gentle, but also strong in a way most people do not notice, and Ashara becomes fond of her very quickly after coming into her service. The way I see it, she becomes Ashara’s dearest friend. And when Rhaegar wrongs her, Ashara is very quick not only to stand beside her friends, but to take offense on Elia’s behalf, feel her pain as if she had been the one wronged. This even before Lyanna’s kidnapping happens; when it does, Ashara is pure resent towards Rhaegar, even though none of his actions affected her directly.

Beyond that, the way I headcanon it, she ended up having some involvement and a developing a degree of fondness for at least some of the Starks. So Lyanna’s kidnapping makes her both disgusted and resenting on many levels; and while most of it is directed at Rhaegar himself, I believe some resentment would also be felt towards Arthur. Ashara had a very idealistic view of her brother, one that wouldn’t be able to stand after that. She wouldn’t understand how could him take part in it, how could he remain loyal to Rhaegar with all he did, how could he agree to keep a girl imprisoned in a tower, hidden away from the world and unable to leave, just because Rhaegar told him to.

He was her hero, but a hero wouldn’t have acted like that. It would break her heart to see him as someone capable of doing this much wrong, because she certainly wouldn’t have believed so before. His involvement in the war and in Rhaegar’s plans would make her angry, but most of all, it would leave her deeply disappointed and upset. If they had both survived the war, I think their relationship would have grown rather distant; she wouldn’t be able to forgive him for it easily, if at all.

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