#also his cloak was supposed to have blood spattered all over it but I kinda messed up *bruh*

[feliciadraws]

*yells into microphone* IS THAT THE GRIM REAPER?!

For real tho- A little while ago I was being a tad salty with @that-plant-tho and I just remembered thinking about how amazing Grim Reaper Knives would have been in Stampede, so I decided to draw Mr Psycho Cutlery Man 🔪

[esther-dot]

"When he weds 'Arya Stark' at Winterfell, Ramsay wears a black velvet doublet slashed with pink silk and glittering with garnet teardrops. The pink bride's cloak is also spattered with red garnets." "Tyrion wore a doublet of black velvet covered with golden scrollwork, thigh-high boots that added three inches to his height, a chain of rubies and lions’ heads" Both Jon foils wore Targ colors while marrying Stark girls. Bonus Ramsey wore garnets.

and this ask:

Joffery had ruby on his sword while Jon had garnets on his sword. Rhaegar wore black armour with rubies at his breastplate while Jon wore black garbs as a NW brother with garnets on his sword. Interestingly Dany had a dream where she was at Rhaegar's place wearing black armour.

I searched black velvet and rubies and garnets, and those pop up enough that I can’t say there’s a totally consistent pattern in how they’re all used, but the Lannisters are kinda wannabe Targs, as in, the comparison of themselves comes up so it’s certainly on the author’s mind, and their power via violence reign ends as pathetically as the Targs will, so I think the connection is undeniable. And of course, Ramsay is the horror story of what a bastard might do to rise to power, so I think you’re right to notice those similarities. Some quotes:

Tyrion wore a doublet of black velvet covered with golden scrollwork, thigh-high boots that added three inches to his height, a chain of rubies and lions' heads. But the gash across his face was raw and red, and his nose was a hideous scab. "You are very beautiful, Sansa," he told her.  (ASOS, Sansa III)

Ramsay Bolton stood beneath them, clad in high boots of soft grey leather and a black velvet doublet slashed with pink silk and glittering with garnet teardrops. A smile danced across his face. "Who comes?" His lips were moist, his neck red above his collar. "Who comes before the god?"

-----

After a moment of silent prayer, the man and woman rose again. Ramsay undid the cloak that Theon had slipped about his bride's shoulders moments before, the heavy white wool cloak bordered in grey fur, emblazoned with the direwolf of House Stark. In its place he fastened a pink cloak, spattered with red garnets like those upon his doublet. On its back was the flayed man of the Dreadfort done in stiff red leather, grim and grisly. (ADWD, The Prince of Winterfell)

There’s a comment of garnets being more affordable than rubies, so that may be why they’re used here, and that’s why I think Tyrion and the Lannisters comment on this from the Targ angle, and Ramsay mainly from the ambitious bastard side. It gives us commentary on both those aspects of Jon’s identity.

We also have the confirmation of what Martin is doing with the black and red colors elsewhere:

"They will do well enough, I suppose," he told Haldon. "The camp is only three miles south." The Shy Maid would have gotten them there more quickly, but he preferred to keep Harry Strickland ignorant of where he and the prince had been. Nor did he relish the prospect of splashing through the shallows to climb some muddy riverbank. That sort of entrance might serve for a sellsword and his son, but not for a great lord and his prince.         

When the lad emerged from the cabin with Lemore by his side, Griff looked him over carefully from head to heel. The prince wore sword and dagger, black boots polished to a high sheen, a black cloak lined with blood-red silk. With his hair washed and cut and freshly dyed a deep, dark blue, his eyes looked blue as well. At his throat he wore three huge square-cut rubies on a chain of black iron, a gift from Magister Illyrio. Red and black. Dragon colors. That was good. "You look a proper prince," he told the boy. "Your father would be proud if he could see you."                 

Young Griff ran his fingers through his hair. "I am sick of this blue dye. We should have washed it out."  (ADWD, The Lost Lord)

In contrast to the Targ black and red, Martin uses white and red for Jon a lot. We’ve joked about him being Snow White because if you look at his chapters/references to him, Martin loves the combo, crimson on ivory, blood on snow....it’s everywhere. There have been metas written about how this connects Jon to Weirwoods via his direwolf who is white with red eyes, and of course, Sansa who also resembles it.

This all, the contrast with Targs and the indication of who he is, begins pretty early on:

The pommel was a hunk of pale stone weighted with lead to balance the long blade. It had been carved into the likeness of a snarling wolf's head, with chips of garnet set into the eyes. The grip was virgin leather, soft and black, as yet unstained by sweat or blood. The blade itself was a good half foot longer than those Jon was used to, tapered to thrust as well as slash, with three fullers deeply incised in the metal. Where Ice was a true two-handed greatsword, this was a hand-and-a-halfer, sometimes named a "bastard sword." Yet the wolf sword actually seemed lighter than the blades he had wielded before. When Jon turned it sideways, he could see the ripples in the dark steel where the metal had been folded back on itself again and again. "This is Valyrian steel, my lord," he said wonderingly. His father had let him handle Ice often enough; he knew the look, the feel.

----

They had moved him back to his old cell in tumbledown Hardin's Tower after the fire, and it was there he returned. Ghost was curled up asleep beside the door, but he lifted his head at the sound of Jon's boots. The direwolf's red eyes were darker than garnets and wiser than men. Jon knelt, scratched his ear, and showed him the pommel of the sword. "Look. It's you." (AGOT, Jon VIII)

Rhaegar and Dany are presented as true dragons unlike our boy:

They had come together at the ford of the Trident while the battle crashed around them, Robert with his warhammer and his great antlered helm, the Targaryen prince armored all in black. On his breastplate was the three-headed dragon of his House, wrought all in rubies that flashed like fire in the sunlight. The waters of the Trident ran red around the hooves of their destriers as they circled and clashed, again and again, until at last a crushing blow from Robert's hammer stove in the dragon and the chest beneath it. When Ned had finally come on the scene, Rhaegar lay dead in the stream, while men of both armies scrabbled in the swirling waters for rubies knocked free of his armor.  (AGOT, Eddard III)

And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own. (AGOT, Daenerys IX)

The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at the right. Her arms cradled them close. The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck coiled under her chin. When it saw Jorah, it raised its head and looked at him with eyes as red as coals. (AGOT, Daenerys X)

And yes, the ruby/fire/blood thing is bad, not positive as we see with the additional comments Martin makes on this:

His hands were shaking, but he made himself be strong. A maester of the Citadel must not be afraid. The wine was sour on his tongue. He let the empty cup drop from his fingers to shatter on the floor. "He does have power here, my lord," the woman said. "And fire cleanses." At her throat, the ruby shimmered redly. (ACOK, Prologue)

Melisandre was robed all in scarlet satin and blood velvet, her eyes as red as the great ruby that glistened at her throat as if it too were afire. (ACOK, Davos I)

As he neared, she saw that Stannis wore a crown of red gold with points fashioned in the shape of flames. (ACOK, Catelyn III)

King Joffrey sat above them all, amongst the blades and barbs of the Iron Throne. He was in crimson samite, his black mantle studded with rubies, on his head his heavy golden crown. (ACOK, Sansa VIII)

"Some smaller than others." Valyria. It was written that on the day of Doom every hill for five hundred miles had split asunder to fill the air with ash and smoke and fire, blazes so hot and hungry that even the dragons in the sky were engulfed and consumed. Great rents had opened in the earth, swallowing palaces, temples, entire towns. Lakes boiled or turned to acid, mountains burst, fiery fountains spewed molten rock a thousand feet into the air, red clouds rained down dragonglass and the black blood of demons, and to the north the ground splintered and collapsed and fell in on itself and an angry sea came rushing in. The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, its fabled empire vanished in a day, the Lands of the Long Summer scorched and drowned and blighted.                 

An empire built on blood and fire. The Valyrians reaped the seed they had sown. (ADWD, Tyrion VIII)

We know this is also the story of House Targaryen. Dany will go full Targ and end her house forever. Aegon, even if he ultimately rejects the path of his family, likely will die at her hands because of the Targ habit of killing other Targs. And AGOT already told us Jon will not follow the Targ path because Martin is doing something with his ruby vs garnet thing:

    

As he entered his lord father's solar a few moments later, he heard a voice saying, ". . . cherrywood for the scabbards, bound in red leather and ornamented with a row of lion's-head studs in pure gold. Perhaps with garnets for the eyes . . ."       "Rubies," Lord Tywin said. "Garnets lack the fire."         (ASOS, Tyrion IV)   

As for the guys betrothed to/marrying Stark girls (or a girl believed to be) wearing Targy colors, no idea what that could mean!

Thank you for pointing those contrasts out, anon!