Game Of Thrones- Tower Of Joy Explained

Hi Guys, in case you're new to the Blog of Ice & Fire, I'm doing weekly Game of Thrones posts where I try and breakdown Game of Thrones theories, back stories, history and everything else.

So this week, we're going to discuss something that has been a debate with the book readers and show watchers alike. I'm talking about the Tower Of Joy incident. So here we go...

Tower of Joy was a round tower in the northern edge of the Red Mountains of Dorne. It was named 'Tower Of Joy' by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, son of King Aerys II Targaryen and elder brother to Daenerys and Viserys. If you're wondering what it looks like, below is an illustration of the tower from the Word of Ice & Fire book.

So what really happened at the Tower of Joy?

Why is it so important?

Well, it's important because that incident that happened here would contribute largely to what is known as Robert's Rebellion against the throne.

Tower of Joy is the place where Rhaegar Targaryen took Lyanna Stark (Ned's Sister) when he supposedly abducted her ( my personal opinion is that they were an item). Before that, at the tourney of Harrenhal, when Rhaegar won the tourney he crowned Lyanna Stark the queen of beauty and roses over his own wife Elia Martell, much to the dismay of Robert Baratheon , who was betrothed to Lyanna at the time and Brandon Stark, the eldest Stark brother.

Ofcourse there were other reasons for the rebellion but I think Rhaegar taking Lyanna was one of the most important ones. I've pointed down where exactly it locates on the map below.

It's located within the Red mountains which themselves are popular because the Dornish people were able to resist Aegon The Conquerer during his conquest of Westeros (I'll do a separate post on Aegon's Conquest sometime soon). In the show there isn't a direct reference to the Tower Of Joy as such but in the first book (AGOT), Ned recalls the events at Tower Of Joy when he's under the milk of poppy.So what exactly happened?

After Robert's Rebellion was over, afte the battle at Trident (where Rhaegar was killed by Robert), Ned marched towards the Tower of Joy to rescue his sister Lyanna along with Howland Reed (Jojen and Mira's father) and some other knights. Obviously, Rhaegar had the tower guarded by the members of the Kingsguard. Leading them was Ser Arthur Dayne aka Sword of the morning.

Now let's take a moment to talk about this man for he was a badass mofo.

Here's what Jamie Lannister, a fine swordsman himself had to say about Dayne in AGOT

"I learned from Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, who could have slain all five of you with his left hand while he was taking a piss with the right". Many considered him to be the most chivalrous warrior of the Seven Kingdoms.He was also Rhaegar's best friend.

By the time Ned reached the tower , Robert Baratheon had already won the Rebellion after killing Rhaegar and the Lannisters had betrayed the throne when Jamie killed the Mad King (hence the name Kingslayer) and Tywin ordered the deaths of Rhaegar's wife Elia Martell (Oberyn's sister) and the infant Aegon Targaryen at the hands of the Mountain.

Ser Arthur Dayne, being the badass mofo he is, refused to bend the knee in front of Ned and they engaged in a combat of seven (Ned's side) vs three (Dayne's side). Arthur Dayne almost killed Ned Stark after all his other knights were dead but Howland Reed and Ned together somehow managed to defeat Arthur Dayne and ended up killing him. After all this was over, Ned finds Lyanna inside the tower lying in a pool of blood. This is the time when she says to him "Promise me Ned". So the whole theory is that Lyanna died in childbirth and gave birth to Rhaegar's son who is Jon Snow (R+L=J). Ned knew that the child won't survive because Robert had vowed to kill every last Targaryen which still holds true years after he visits the North where the show starts from. Ned brought the baby to Winterfell as his own bastard son and the rest we know. Ned honoured Ser Arthur Dayne by bringing his legendary blade 'Dawn' to his sister Ashara Dayne at Starfall his ancestral land.

There's also a lot of speculation that since Ned spent a lot of time at Starfall with Ashara Dayne, so even Ashara could be Jon's mother, but I'm a huge fan of the R+L=J, it just makes so much more narrative sense.

So why is it such a big problem for Ned to tell Jon who his real mother is?

The answer to this is that it would have plunged the kingdom into another Civil war and everyone wanted to prevent that. Since all of Robert's children are true Lannisters so it wouldn't be a surprise if the whole kingdom rallied behind a true Targaryen heir. If Jon truly is a Targaryen and a proven leader at the wall, imagine the kind of support he would gather if he were to claim the Iron throne. The only problem is there are very few people who can corroborate his parentage. There's Howland Reed (who's alive in the books, we haven't seen him on the show though). I think Rhaegar corresponded with Maester Aemon Targaryen on a regular basis and Aemon must have kept some sort of documented record where Rhaegar mentions about his son with Lyanna so there's that. It's pretty obvious from the trailer that they are doing a Tower Of Joy flashback, either it could be a straight flashback like Cersei's flashback from Season 5 Ep 1 or it could be one of Bran's vision. But the whole point of having a Tower Of Joy sequence is to reveal what happened between Rhaegar and Lyanna Stark. So there's still a lot of mystery around the Tower Of Joy and we would only know when the new season comes out. Ned destroyed the Tower after Robert's Rebellion.

Some extra trivia- Arthur Dayne's sword 'Dawn' is easily the most legendary sword in all of seven kingdom. It's older than any other sword that we've seen in the show or the books and it's made from Valyrian steel that was carved out of a fallen meteor.

So, looks like we will finally find out who Jon's parents are in this season. Let's keep our fingers crossed for our favourite bastard to return!

Let's hi-five,Stay tuned for more stories next week!