#ask lyanna

[lyannatropes]

I'm actually a relatively new follower, are there any blorbos in particular you want to show off?

I have many a blorbos that I actually don't show off enough, so here is some of them!

My secret obsession and awful woman I think about all the time. Opal is the first character I ever played in a ttrpg (Urban Shadows), and she was an ex monster hunter on a vengeance after her werewolf girlfriend was killed. She is so bad and tragic I can't help but love her deeply.

My dear "Looks terrifying, is actually a cinnamon roll (unless you hurt her shadow pet then fucking run)" lady knight, Lucrezia. She's an outcast who gets along better with spirits than humans, and she has a special bond with a shadow spirit who uses animal bones like shells called Catena. She's also another character I played!

My "Was a dragon in a previous life, is reincarnated again and again as a human after a curse" sorceress and artefacts enthusiast, Alyssa. She's also a character I played in an Urban Shadows game, the dragon playbook was perhaps the most fun I ever had. She had so many badass moments that live rent free in my head. I don't have art of her on my laptop and that is tragic.

Since this is getting long, I'll lastly mentioned my necromancer and lady knight Lavinia. She can see spirits and travel to the underworld, but in doing so accidentally poked where she wasn't meant to and she is now haunted by a powerful spirit. She is in a throuple with two other necromancers, Maria and Artemisia.

[nedseii]

I love ur art so much!! Would u ever draw any of the starks as kids??? (Brandon, Ned, lyanna, benjen)

Tysm!! I tried to draw Brandon too but I hate every single attempt and I didn't want to keep you waiting so I hope you like these 🙏

[corviids]

could you please post the finished lyanna and rhaegar art? i saw it on twitter and i love it <3

here you go anon !! sorry about that <3

[atopvisenyashill]

Is Lyanna really as terrible as some people portray her as?

no, not even a little bit.

the absolute most important thing about lyanna is that when she dies she is only 16. i am someone who works with kids - i work in a library so i spend most of my days cleaning up after tweens and asking teenagers to please stop doing dumb shit- and the first thing anyone who has ever worked with kids and especially teenagers is that they may look like adults but they are NOT. they don’t understand boundaries, they have next to zero impulse control, and every bad thing that happens feels like the worst thing ever because it very likely IS the worst thing they’ve ever experienced bc they have not been alive that long!

and this goes for every single teen & tween character in this series, not just lyanna! shit, i am someone who feels an immense amount of sympathy for joffrey! on one side he’s got his mother telling him he can do anything he wants with no repercussions and on the other he’s got his father hitting him so hard that stannis thought joffrey was going to die. and then he is given unchecked power and told not to abuse it! EYE cannot even guarantee that i wouldn’t use unchecked power to do shady shit and i am a fully grown adult, not a traumatized, irrationally, and deeply vindictive 13 year old boy.

but honestly the most important thing about lyanna is that we have ZERO CONTEXT for what happens between her and Rhaegar. What we have is

Ned’s sparse & guilt ridden thoughts about Lyanna and one (1) comment about Rhaegar

Robert’s angry, entitled, and grief ridden outbursts about Lyanna and Rhaegar

Barristan’s incredibly romanticized, guilt & grief ridden take on their relationship

Meera’s second hand account of Lyanna, told to her by a father who is likely just as guilt & grief ridden as the others, who likely has his own view of Lyanna

What’s important to note is that our view of her is heavily filtered through the eyes of the men that knew her. Robert loves an idealized version of her that never existed. Barristan never actually knew her. Ned is not only viewing her under 200 layers of guilt and grief, but very obviously does not understand his sister, or why she made the choices she did, and struggles constantly with knowing that he will never know her the way he wishes he could, the way he thought he did. Given the way Meera describes Lyanna, I actually think Howland is our most accurate look at her but even that is buried behind years of grief & a fair amount of hero worship and affection (“that’s my fathers man you’re kicking howled the she-wolf” is a line that makes me WEEP for this exact reason; Howland sees Lyanna as his hero above all else!).

All of that to say - we don't even know what Lyanna did that was so terrible! Even if she was a grown woman capable of making rational decisions, we have no idea what her decisions were. She could have been lied to, misled, kidnapped, threatened, just as surely as she could have walked into the situation with open eyes. Even in the show, with a slightly aged up Lyanna - we get, what, just Sam's opinion on Rhaegar and Lyanna being in love because they got hitched? Completely ignoring the fact that we had several women in this series get married not because they were in love or willing but because someone more powerful decided on it and that was that, so there's still no evidence that Lyanna had enough information about the situation to make any sort of informed, consensual decision.

so no, i do not hold lyanna responsible for anything at all that happened regardless of how it happened because she was not mentally mature enough to understand what the hell was going on. a 15 year old is just not mature enough to think “if i run off with this married man, it’s going to cause a cascade of political issues that could have disastrous consequences.” what she’s probably thinking is “this man says he can help me and i am fucking miserable and no one else will listen.” it’s why we don’t throw 15 year olds who run away to meet up with old dudes they met online in jail when they’re caught (or theoretically why we don’t punish them at any rate). There is one person and one person only who is responsible for the massive fuck up that is the Elia-Rhaenys-Aegon-Lyanna-Jon mess and that is RHAEGAR, the person with the most amount of power who used it in the dumbest way imaginable and got himself, most of his heirs, his wife, and his teenaged mistress killed. The only other people responsible are the Kingsguard who kept Lyanna under lock and key while she lay dying and pleading for her brother to come save her.

[long-claw]

Lyanna starks haunts the narrative. You should see how jealous Elia's fans are from this fact. They want george and the narrative to care for her. They think it's unfair that Elia doesn't haunt it too when all that she is is a plot device, while lyanna is the woman of the prophecy and the mother of Jon, the promised one. It's not like I hate Elia, but someone dared to say that Elia deserved the flower crown at Harrenhall when it's lyanna's motif.

I can't wait until they see that even Arthur Dayne cared for lyanna more. He probably stayed by her side comforting her after Rhaegar's death. I wouldn't be surprised if he was attracted to her. Not to hate on Elia but to show them the truth.

i'm so sorry but you've come to the wrong place, yes i was crying over lyanna a couple hours ago but i've cried over elia too because what could you possibly have against a dead woman in asoiaf who's only crime was... being in an arranged marriage? not being lyanna?

in all seriousness maybe george and the narrative don't care about elia but i do. she watched her baby's head be caved in and then was brutally raped and murdered and i hate that that's the most important thing we know about her. i wish elia was as important as lyanna, but how cruel is it to sit and compare two dead women by how much they matter to the living men.

also i have no idea what you're talking about arthur dayne and you can say this isn't hating, but it feels kinda like hating to me 😭

EDIT: i've thought about it more and "i wouldnt be surprised if he was attracted to her. not to hate on elia but to show them the truth" is such a wild statement please don't come back 😭

[bastardofharrenhal]

real funny how everyone goes out of their way to hate catelyn for daring to not like jon but lyanna’s negative reaction to the mere existence of mya stone is glorified as a girlboss standing on business moment

I'd clock into my shift as cat's defender any day of the week, but let's not pretend like those things r the same. lyanna wasn't hating on mya stone nor any other bastard - she was clocking robert and the fact he wouldn't change in marriage or in love no matter how much ned hoped he would, in which she was right, btw. cat was hating on jon because he was the only person she could punish for ned's infidelity. ned is her husband and inherently had power over her, she didn't know who jon's mother was and speculation on her identity was forbiden by ned, and if she tried to rebel against ned, who she loves, she'd only make herself miserable, bring to light the cracks in her marriage and earn nothing. Her resentment of jon isn't because jon did something wrong, its because he exists and ned constantly undermined her as his wife and the mother of his heirs. robert, on the other hand, did not have that power over lyanna and wouldn't until they married. he had not right to forbid her from speaking of his bastards or being upset by them or drawing conclusions. let's not put two bad bitches in two bad situations against one another

[hamliet]

Hope you are having a wonderful day! Just wanted to ask, what's your take on Rhaegar Targaryen? What kind of person do you perceive him as? GRRM has so many characters praise him but many of his actual actions were so shitty

Good question! My interpretation: he's a person.

No, but really. I think he is neither the conniving groomer many view him as, nor the heroic, romantic prince with a heart of gold. But I think he started out more as the heroic, romantic side than the other.

Do I think Rhaegar loved Lyanna? Yes, I genuinely do. I realize that take isn't popular but my guess is that it fits better with Martin's view of a Romantic world, and also fits better with Lyanna's character. That said, I also don't think Martin will ever clear it up and will leave the idea of whether this is love or not up for debate--because it can be debated. I guess I should say I think Lyanna and Rhaegar both believed they were in love and felt that way until they died. However--

However, love doesn't magically make the world better. This is the part where Martin's view takes a melancholy semi-deconstructionist look at Romanticism. Martin's MO in doing this, through other characters like Sansa, is showing us that fairy tale logic-- "knights are brave and faithful" "love saves the day" and "true power is kindness"--doesn't work on a daily level, but it doesn't mean there is no value to the ideals it teaches.

Idealism seems to be at the root of Rhaegar's character, honestly. He's kind of like Sansa, but if Sansa was still unwise as an adult with a lot more power and agency. Idealism of romantic love. Idealism of being a brave heroic king who fulfilled the prophecy to save the world. He fully believed in these things, and they made his life and the lives of everyone he loved worse.

Rhaegar is married to Elia and essentially ditches her and their two kids to run off with Lyanna, who is a teenager facing a marriage she doesn't want with someone who claims to love her but isn't faithful to her during betrothal, much less marriage. The tragedy of it is that Lyanna runs off with someone essentially doing the same thing to his wife that Lyanna didn't want to be done to her as Robert's wife.

Still, I think Rhaegar was probably genuinely fascinated with Lyanna when he found out she was the Knight of the Laughing Tree and promised not to reveal her. Thus, true love was all that mattered, right? Except... that's not how the world works.

But did Rhaegar really love Lyanna or was he just using her for the prophecy? Again, I think why can't it be both? I do think the prophecy idea played a role in Rhaegar's motivations to pursue Lyanna. He wanted a third child and thought he had to have one for the prophecy, but Elia could not have more children physically without killing her.*

So, my thinking is that grinding to determine whether his motives were prophecy or purely love miss the point and negate the tragedy of the situation. He loved Lyanna but yes, he also saw opportunity and assumed destiny would guide him. And that hubris ensured that both Lyanna and Rhaegar died.

Rhaegar is an idealistic man who believes so strongly in his sense of purpose--a purpose greater than himself that genuinely will save people--that he forgets to look down and look around him at the life he's actually living and the lives around him in favor of the potential lives he could save. His hyper-focus on prophecy is his tragic flaw that brings about his downfall and death of so many people, and it didn't need to happen this way.

In focusing on a dream idealistic forbidden romance and coming child, he neglects his living wife and children, who are then assaulted and brutally murdered. Instead of true love idealistically triumphing, he actually loses to the man whom Lyanna did not love but who was betrothed to marry her, since Robert kills him. In his belief that the prophecy would be fulfilled through him, he forgets that he is himself human and all humans have weaknesses and die.

Rhaegar had the best of intentions but the worst of the worst of implementation, in other words. Or maybe more accurately Rhaegar was all about theory, and he forgot practice and everyone around him paid the price, particularly the innocents like Elia, Aegon, and Rhaenys. The questions that stem from this drive many of our characters and are at the heart of the questions Martin wants his readers to ask.

And: his life wasn't entirely in vain, because his son Jon lives.

*(Aside--to his credit, Rhaegar does not force Elia to have sex and have another child even though he could have. Like, bare minimum yes, but it's also not a coincidence that we're told that Aerys the Mad King routinely brutally assaults Rhaegar's mother (and one of these attacks leads to Daenerys's birth) because in Westeros it's not assault if you're married. Side note: also not a coincidence that what isn't seen as assault but is leads to Dany while what is publicly seen as assault but isn't leads to Jon.

Even throughout Fire & Blood, we read about husbands who unquestionably love their wives having sex with them and conceiving kids strongly against medical advice--Robert and Alyssa, Jaehaerys and Alysanne, etc. Rhaegar doesn't do this, showing that he's trying to do less harm to others around him. But, he still humiliates Elia by taking off with Lyanna--and his actions do lead to her death and the death of their children. And even if they hadn't, there's an emotional toll. So, did he really do less harm, or more? These are the sorts of questions I think Martin wants his readers to ponder more than answer.)*

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Hello Butterfly! Sorry for a weird ask, but i could have sword that i've seen somewhere on your blog a link to an old writeup of r+l=j theory. the info there was the usual, careful combing thru Ned's POV chapters for proof, but i remember it *looking* old, like the most barebones of a webpage, just text on a white background, no header, no footer, barely any margins on the text. not a part of an old forum or anything either, but like someone just made that one page of theory and hosted it themselves. now i'm looking around for it and i simply can't find it :( if you know what im talking about, could you link it? if not, nvm, i know this is a crazy long shot. thank you!!

Not at all a weird ask, believe me! You're asking about the really ancient ASOIAF FAQ I found once, don't worry, I still remember it. This is the FAQ, it was made before AFFC, and was last updated in 2003. (It's hosted on Angelfire, which often amazes me that it's still going, but hey, good luck for us. You can even still make your own Web 1.0-style site there!) And this is the page on the question of Jon's parentage, which concludes that R+L=J is the most logical answer. It's still one of the best resources on that question, lacking only the primary evidence developments in AFFC (the Gilly's baby switcheroo) and ADWD (Bran's vision of Lyanna stick-swordfighting and of Ned praying that Jon and Robb become "close as brothers"). Hope that helps!

[martellspear]

What do you think about rhaelya fan's "Jon was unplanned" fave narrative?

Let's see...

Rhaegar is a man who has built his lift around the prophecy, he changed his entire lifestyle because of it ⇀ Rhaegar put in his head he needs to father three babies but refuses to put his wife through a third pregnancy ⇀ Rhaegar comes across "A song of Ice and Fire" ⇀ associates ice with the Starks and thinks his third baby - Visenya - will come from Lord Stark's daughter. ⇀ He only stays with her until he knows for sure she is with child ⇀ Rhaegar leaves and doesn't leave instructions or anyone to aid the delivery. Not only that but the girl is currently in a Tower somewhere she doesn't know, where people probably want her dead and dealing with weather conditions she isn't used to. ⇀ The knights that went with him have orders to murder anyone who comes to take his incubator home. ⇀ If Rhaegar had any future plans for Lyanna, he would have taken here somewhere else or forsaken the crown. ⇀ Rhaegar wants his third baby, that's it. The rest is the rest. ⇀ Rhaegar doesn't do anything to make the pregnancy comfortable for her.

Now let's look at it from Lyanna's perspective:

Lyanna was 14 years old when they met ⇀ Lyanna wanted to be a knight, she doesn't care for "lady like" activities, she wanted to be just like her big brothers - probably really looked up to Brandon - ⇀ Lyanna has a moral code, she believes bastards to be a slight ⇀ Lyanna doesn't want to marry Robert because he has bastards, it would bring her shame. A bastard born before Robert's betrothal to her, mind you ⇀ Lyanna probably wouldn't be happy in Dorne, trapped in a tower. She died screaming, she wanted to go home. ⇀ Rhaegar didn't tell her - or even worse, did and kept her captive - about her dead brother and father ⇀ Lyanna, clearly, wouldn't happily carry Rhaegar's child. He probably manipulated her, I don't doubt he convinced her she could stay in Dorne and train there. The dornish culture is more lenient toward women who want to fight.

Jon was planned by Rhaegar. He needed a third baby, a girl. His third head of the dragon. Lyanna was something he used to get there, harsh as it sounds.

[lyannatropes]

Obsessed with your art. The vibes are so good

omg thank you so much 🥹

[nedseii]

We’ve seen Rhaegar in your style (who looks amazing btw) but I’ve wondered if you drew Lyanna Stark too before? :o

Sheeeeeeeee

[whateverthought]

It's tragic love. You just don't WANT not CAN'T like Rhaegar x Lyanna. You think life is white and black and that as long as Elia is not loved by Rhaegar you should find fault in their love.

Whats tragic about it? What did Rhaegar see in this little girl? The only nice thing he ever does for her is naming her "Love and Beauty" at a tourney. Which, depending on Lyanna's situation could have actually hurt her? If Robert Baratheon had been a jealous, abusive man, seeing another man show interest in her could have caused her problems. Hell, if her father was an abusive man, he could have called her a whore and punished her for just the Thought that she was with the Prince, who she never met.

Other than that? What else is there? Stealing her away in the night? Something that started a War and put her siblings in harm's way? He took her from her Horrible Betrothement and then what? Put her in a tower?

We do know Rhaegar was obsessed with his Family History and the Prophecy especially. We do know Elia couldn't give him anymore children, just one short. We do know he knew about the Ice and Fire part and its 'importance'. We also know Lyanna hated that Robert, her fiance/betrothed, slept around even though they were 'together'. And we know Lyanna had a strong moral compass, or belief in Right and Wrong.

Saying you KNOW what I'm feeling is crazy. It's not my Black and White View that's causing me problems, its the established characterization that I'm hung up on.

I don't care if Rhaegar Loved Elia, personally I don't have enough on these characters to care.

[ladystoneboobs]

ya ever think about how the lannister sibs all have big secrets kept from each other, like huge life-altering experiences? jaime's is the most obvious, the most talked-about, with the full story of his kingslaying and everything he endured from aerys leading up to it. it's clear enough to me that brienne was the first he opened up to about that, including either sibling. they never asked, but unlike ned stark and the rest deriding him as kingslayer, their lack of curiosity is no offense in itself bc as tywin's other children they would never judge him for turning his cloak purely out of family loyalty. ned's assumption of jaime's motives is directly tied to his judgment of jaime, but it's the judgment that rankles jaime so. choosing your father's life over a king's is hardly the worst crime in itself. how can he explain all the other reasons without prompting when its not just about his crime but all his trauma too? is there any basis for that in his relationship with cersei, who always relied on him for comfort and consolation but seems less adept at providing the same to him? or even with tyrion, his only real male friend for years, but also his baby brother, the one he was meant to protect and take care of, who was only 10 at the time of the kingslaying? even to fully share all with tyrion years later, both adults, could be something of a role reversal, forever shattering tyrion's image of him as the strong invulnerable golden big brother by revealing his own broken inner child. jaime can't break out from those sibling roles and patterns, so neither can ever understand that part of him, never knowing the early life he had at court without either of them with him.

and tyrion, who trusted jaime more than anyone in the world before learning the truth about tysha, still could not confide in him freely even when all that trust was still intact. jaime must have heard some story of what tywin did to tysha to feel the need to confess his lie, but he def didn't hear it straight from tyrion bc imo there's no way he could still think confessing would help anything if he understood how scarred tyrion was by what he witnessed and esp not knowing that tywin ordered him to participate at the end. tyrion could reveal all that to bronn when they barely knew each other but not to his beloved brother, his first and best friend. how can the most abused child explain all his unknown abuse to the golden child, the big brother meant to protect him who couldn't always do so? how does he even begin to reveal the deepest trauma that happened to him when jaime wasn't in the room, esp when the story does start with jaime apparently trying to help him by fixing him up with tysha?

and then there's cersei and all her secrets. she always turned to jaime for consolation, or at least when he knew she needed it, but how many times did he not know? how personally could she confide in him as they grew older and their paths diverged? we know the first big secret was maggy the frog's prophecy, her first big scare, which came on the cusp of puberty, an experience she couldn't share with her twin bc he would prob just laugh and make a joke of it. in their first real scene together, in bran's pov, he mocks lysa's motherly fears and likens her to cersei. ("I think birthing does something to your minds. You are all mad." He laughed.) then he makes light of her marital discord, ("And whose fault is that, sweet sister?"), having no idea of the depth of pain she'd suffered from robert, beyond his infidelities. he later blames her for being robert's queen, not his, only thinking of how she managed to arrange his kg post, that power to forever tie him to her in secret, never grasping her lack of control in marriage, that "a queen is only a woman after all". in her pride it was hard to reveal all she'd suffered as a woman, but she also couldn't rely on jaime's response if he knew of her abuse, knowing he would kill robert and get himself killed too, only making her and their children's lives more precarious. she couldn't trust him to listen about securing the throne before dealing with robert or that as robert's victim it was her right to decide such matters, to choose his fate, not jaime's place to avenge her without her say-so first. all bc they were both too stuck in their idea of jaime as her sword, nothing more, with jaime determined to protect her and tyrion, always a bodyguard before he ever donned a white cloak.

something something tywin did his best to play his children off each other and the most effective thing he did to divide them was by setting jaime up as the golden child and family protector. the designated lannister sword only pointing at threats outside their house. a knight serving his family whose protection was always limited, who could never protect them from the person who first hurt cersei and tyrion and made them who they were at a distance from him, bc ofc he couldn't fight his own father, much less slay him with a sword.

something something maybe the reason that joff+marg+loras was a surer recipe for kingslayer stew than robert+cersei+jaime is all down to that tyrell lack of abusive structure. not that loras cared more about marg, was more willing to kill for her than jaime was to kill robert, but that there wasn't a chance of marg hiding her misery from him if/when her husband abused her in their shared household. it's not like he understood her to the point of mind-reading but when their previous royal marital household involved her bearding for his boyfriend then they prob had a pretty good basis of open communication. in that sense, the lannicest twins with all their sexual and physical intimacy still had less emotional intimacy than the tyrell queen and her kg brother.

[lingulaca]

You don't need to say it. The subtle hint in your words is abovious. TikTok is full of Lyanna's haters because "she hurt elia" or whatever victim fantasy Elia's stans like. Rhaegar was never Elia's. Lyanna didn't take anything from her. He was hers from the beginning.

this is what i mean when i say being an elia fan these days is tiring

i talked about how being an elia fan felt weird bc online she has lots of haters for weird reasons and your response is "tiktok is full of-" DID I ASK YOU WHAT TIKTOK WAS FULL OF? 🤦🏾‍♀️

there isn't any "subtle hint" in my words you sound insane this is tumblr. can we stay on topic and stop projecting pls you just said things that don't apply to me lmfao

"rhaegar was never elia's"/"lyanna didn't take anything from her" i don't like rhaegar and i don't think him being with anyone is good. i feel bad for lyanna, that's rlly it... it's weird that u seem to think i feel jealous on behalf of elia. i am NOT an elia x rhaegar shipper somebody else can have him 🤷🏾‍♀️

[rise-my-angel]

'BuT NeD ThInKs PoSiTiVeLy Of RhAeGaR' Ned thinks of Rhaegar ONCE that he was a man unlikely to visit brothels. From this we can conclude that he was not a sex pest like Robert. How on earth does this inform of Ned's personal feelings though? Ned is comparing Robert and Rhaegar and thinking in factual terms. Its similar to how he thinks of Aerys killing his father and brother but not once does he express hatred against Aerys. But we do know what he would think of Aerys, its common sense. Even if we go by 'Lyanna was willing' idea, Lyanna still died because Rhaegar impregnated her at 15 and then left her imprisoned without proper healthcare. She died because of Rhaegar's actions. People who use this argument are usually those who don't understand Ned's character very clearly, he is a man who while suffering from ptsd, suppresses painful emotions and feelings.

Ned Stark is SO MUCH more complicated then those people will ever give him credit for. They are desperate to paint him as so easily black and white when he is the most "living in the grey area" man to literally ever exist. They also refuse to give any context to that scene.

Because it isn't really Rhaegar Neds thinking about in that scene, it's Jon. Ned is in a brothel looking for one of Roberts many bastards, and connecting Robert to Lyanna to Rhaegar he wonders if Rhaegar was like Robert in that sense. The question Ned is really asking, is if there is a possibility that there are more people out there like Jon. He's asking himself if he's sure that Jon is alone and comes to the conclusion that yes, Rhaegar probably didn't sleep around like Robert and this comes to the conclusion that the only secret child of Rhaegars is in fact, still Jon.

But it's like you said, Ned strongly buries his true emotions deep down. He is a very traumatized man who has never truly gotten past the point in his life where his sister died in front of him. Ned is still trapped in that room and the haunting smell of blood and roses. Ned was described as catatonic for a while after Lyanna died and he never truly came out of that emotionally. He keeps everything inside very deeply and is utterly haunted with that upcoming trauma once the main story starts. His every action in Kings Landing is rooted in that trauma of what happened to Lyanna and the deep fear of what will happen to Jon. Everything he does in Kings Landing is about that, Neds priority in the story, is Jon. That dicates everything he does in the main plot because he is deeply traumatized and terrifed of what will happen to his son.

There's even a strong argument to be made that had Robert never come to Winterfell and involved the Starks directly within the dealings of the Crown, that Ned wouldn't ever have let Jon join the Nights Watch. That agree or disagree with letting him, that a big reason he allows it, is out of the fear of Jon being anywhere near the people Ned's spent Jons entire life protecting him from. That Ned would rather Jon be in the Nights Watch, then hunted down and murdered by Robert.

Ned the entire story and half of his life has been burying very deeply rooted trauma of what happened to Lyanna, and has been motivated that same time to put Jon as one of his biggest priorities right up until his death. But because he keeps this all buried deep inside, its easy for people, mostly Rhaegar defenders, to paint him as black and white, a bad father, a mindless soldier with no autonomy outside of Robert, a selfish man.

Ned Stark is one of the best written characters in recent literature, theres a reason he's still remembered and talked about to this day, and it is certainly not because he is as black and white as Rhaegar stans desperately try to slander him as.

[hamliet]

Is sansa connected to the winter rose?

In a word: no.

The winter rose is connected to Lyanna, Jon, and Daenerys.

The winter rose itself is a flower, a beautiful blue rose. They exist at Winterfell, and the legend associated with them is that Bael the Bard, a successful singer, entered Winterfell under an assumed name. As a reward, Brandon Stark offered him whatever he wanted, and Bael asked for the most beautiful flower. Brandon gave him the rose, but the next morning, Brandon's only daughter was missing from her bed, and the rose lay on the covers.

The crown of winter roses is what Rhaegar gave to Lyanna. Lyanna even dies holding roses, although their petals had turned black from death. The point is clearly that Rhaegar wooed Lyanna and she ran off with him, leaving her family. She also then died, and the beautiful blue roses had all decayed. I don't think Rhaegar and Lyanna weren't in love to some degree, but there's still a lot of political machinations at play and love, true or otherwise, didn't save them like in a fairy tale. In the end they were left with blood and death, not living roses. It's a symbol of loss as much as it is of love--loss of a daughter, loss of Lyanna, loss of a mother.

The context in which the Bael the Bard legend is told is also relevant: Ygritte tells it to Jon, who is Lyanna's son. I mean, the clues could not be clearer:

Ygritte: And she never sung you the song o' the winter rose? Jon: I never knew my mother. Or any such song.

Not only that, but Jon is facing a similar choice to Lyanna, of breaking his vows and staying with Ygritte. In the end, he chooses to return to the Watch.

But, it's not over. No, the legend continues in Brandon Stark relentlessly searching for them, but they never find anyone. He has no heirs, but then the girl returns with an infant, and as it turns out she and Bael never left the crypts of Winterfell--a place of death.

The symbolism is again pretty obvious: Jon as an infant, but also the idea that love stays with you even when you've lost the people whom you love. It's bittersweet. They're with you all along. And, from death comes life. The Stark bastard becomes a Stark lord. Again, the Jon symbolism is obvious.

Bael then becomes a King Beyond the Wall and invades the North, and his own son fights and defeats him--because Bael could not bring himself to kill his son. But his mother still loved Bael and commits suicide. Lovely. But again, the symbolism and themes are obvious: choosing love over duty (as Bael does) and choosing duty over love (as the Stark daughter does) both lead to death, because "death, the high cost of living." Our job living is to walk that tightrope and find a balance we can live with.

Dany's visions in the House of the Undying also connect Jon to the winter rose: she smells it "sweetly" as it grows "from a chink of ice in the wall." It's clearly associated with romance, as well.

Sansa has no connection to the winter rose as far as I can tell. In fact a search tells me the only connection is that after Ygritte tells Jon this, the next chapter is the one where she first "flowers," which is exceedingly tenuous as a connection. The Stark daughter who is repeatedly connected to Lyanna is Arya, not Sansa, and the winter rose has never actually appeared in either of their stories the way it has in Jon's and Daenerys's.