spoiler:knight of the laughingtree=jon

[jnr_turtle]

Originally Posted by hodor

He knows too much??? LOL. No chapter on Howland because he knows too much. I love that reasoning hahahaha.

It's the same reasoning that's used for cases for PoVs of Varys and Littlefinger. It just won't happen because they know too much of the bigger picture.

[Culhwch]

As to Lyanna seeing off these punks proving she is the be-all-and-end-all Amazon of this story - they were squires, not yet trained knights, and there is nothing saying how far along in their training they were. Plus they were unarmed, and Lyanna, as you've said numerous times, was armed with a tourney sword. And she took them by surprise. So I don't think that proves her to be a great warrior.

Someone - can't remember if it was Raven or Midnight - said the crannogman wasn't the revenging type - read the story again: 'None offered a name, but he marked their faces well so he could revenge himself upon them later.' And, lo, what happened... He revenged himself on them later.

As to Lyanna having the skill as a knight Howland wouldn't have had to beat these other knights - it wasn't as if they were the most skilled or renowned of knights - one of them was a Frey, for crying out loud! They seemed more of the intermediate class. Good, but not great. And whose to say there isn't a master-at-arms of sorts at Greywater?

The point of this story? I agree with Arya, that it was to show the steel at the heart of the usually underestimated crannogmen. Plus, it links Howland with the Starks, and shows why he fights at Eddard's side during the rebellion. Not just because he is sworn to Winterfell, but because the Starks protected him (through Lyanna), and then welcomed him and treated him as an equal, and showed belief in him, which no one else was willing to do.

[jnr_turtle]

And whose to say there isn't a master-at-arms of sorts at Greywater?

Actually there isn't. When Meera is sparring with Summer and wins, Bran asks her if she learnt to fight from her master-at-arms. She replies that they didn't have a master-at-arms and that she learnt from her father. Just an FYI =)

[hodor]

THANK YOU for bringing that up.... hmmm... I had nearly forgotten about that. Howland is a fighter.

[Culhwch]

Originally Posted by hodor

THANK YOU for bringing that up.... hmmm... I had nearly forgotten about that. Howland is a fighter.

Exactly. And I didn't really mean a master-of-arms of the Ser Rodrik Cassell variety, which is why I added the 'of sorts' qualifier. But if Meera learnt off her father, Howland probably learnt off his, and so on - so they are trained fighters. Not like knights, obviously - but Howland would probably have more actual training than Lyanna.

[hodor]

That is rather obvious. Anyone that believes that Lyanna has the training that can equivalate that of a knight is got reasoning beyond mine. I will subscribe to the idea she had a sword and could do stuff like Arya... however, when posed against an armed man Arya couldn't do much.

[mercury]

well
I tend to agree but according to jojen reed the mystery knight has the help of the green man, and besides, the story is a myth, the grain of truth might be covered by the art of the storyteller.

[I, Brian]

That's a good point, mercury - and welcome to the chronicles-network.

We're certainly at the mercy of accepting character viewpoints as objective - though as has been pointed out a few times now, we are very much at the mercy of character bias in some instances.

[Raven]

hodor: oh, absolutely Howland is a fighter - as of the Rebellion. Though it's important to note that his skills, and the ones he teaches Meera, are emphatically not tourney skills. Crannogmen fight on foot, in light armour, with frog-spear and net, not on horseback, in plate and mail, with lance, sword and shield. As the KotLT did.

A year or two prior, however, he is getting his backside kicked by these three squires. The same three squires Lyanna beats. (If Lyanna beating them is no big deal, then what does that say about Howland's inability to beat them?)

Are you telling me it's credible that Howland, who is helpless to defend himself from being beaten up by these three squires, goes on to beat their masters: but totally incredible that Lyanna, who easily beats the same three squires, could do it?

As for Lyanna's training, well, we simply don't know what level of training Lyanna had. Assumptions about that are shaky proof.

Anyway, I would ask you to remember that 'Lyanna as KotLT' does not require us to believe that knights in Westeros typically get beat up by little girls - only that this particular exceptional girl, on this particular exceptional occasion, managed to beat these particular knights.

[mercury]

I think you jump a bit to fast to the idea that holend reed is a fighter. no doubt that he has some talent is arms, but if he is the little sampling in the story, you can read his fascination with magic in between. jojen natural affinity and understanding of magic may speak for his early upbringing in grayfort (I think its the name of the reed castle). holend may be a competent magician by himself.

[AryaUnderfoot]

Originally Posted by Raven

hodor: oh, absolutely Howland is a fighter - as of the Rebellion. Though it's important to note that his skills, and the ones he teaches Meera, are emphatically not tourney skills. Crannogmen fight on foot, in light armour, with frog-spear and net, not on horseback, in plate and mail, with lance, sword and shield. As the KotLT did.

A year or two prior, however, he is getting his backside kicked by these three squires. The same three squires Lyanna beats. (If Lyanna beating them is no big deal, then what does that say about Howland's inability to beat them?)

Are you telling me it's credible that Howland, who is helpless to defend himself from being beaten up by these three squires, goes on to beat their masters: but totally incredible that Lyanna, who easily beats the same three squires, could do it?

Midnight- The crannogmen do not have tourney skills, that's true. However, tourney skills are not necessary for besting a knight with that training. Different types of training make for different fighting styles- the Dornishmen and the Dothraki certainly have different fighting styles, and we all know that the Dothraki do not have masters of arms, either. But I'm sure that most knights would not have been able to best Khal Drogo.

Lyanna did beat the squires using a tourney sword, but I'm doubting that they fought back. After all, despite their apparent lack of respect for the crannogman, she was a member of one of the most powerful families in the kingdom. A big name can do a great deal to make an enemy turn away from a fight.

The crannogmen was set upon by three men whilst unarmed. Three. Not one single knight while he was equally armed and armored later in the story. And he had nothing to goad him into fighting the squires at first- it was revenge that carried him into the tourney fights.

Also, in regards to what someone said about Howland knowing too much, I'd like to point out that Ned himself knew all the mysteries behind the Lyanna story, and he certainly didn't give it all away. I think GRRM is enough of a master that he could write from any PoV without giving the entire story away.

[Culhwch]

I hadn't thought of it that way, but what Arya says makes perfect sense - Lyanna was noble and probably readily identifiable as such - of course the squires aren't going to beat her. Besides, she had a sword and they didn't! Did you miss the whole point of this statement? Howland is being beaten by three boys bigger than him (who waylay him, it would seem, without giving him the opportunity to stand and fight) and you say this proves he isn't a fighter. What does Lyanna laying into three unarmed and unwary squires with a heavy piece of steel say about her? That she's a bully?

And Howland might not have been taught the exact same skills as knights, but I can see how the skills you've listed may equate - the ability to put a frog spear through as small a target as, yes, a frog has to help a man judge how to put the point of lance just there to knock an enemy from his horse.

[Raven]

Arya: you miss my point about fighting styles. It's not that a crannogman couldn't beat a knight: of course he could. (Howland, after all, survived a fight with three of the greatest knights in the realm.) It's that the KotLT did not fight like a crannogman.

Culhwch has an interesting point about whether some of the skills necessary were transferable, but by-and-large I'd say they weren't. I haven't jousted myself, of course, but I know a few people with more than a passing interest in medieval fighting (academic and recreational). I've had these sort of discussions with them before, and the key skill for jousting, they tell me, is riding. Howland was not a rider, and had no skills he could 'transfer' to riding in the way Culhwch suggests. Besides, manipulating a mobile small spear and manipulating a couched twelve foot lance are really not that similar in practise, I'm told (and I do actually have experience of the former).

edit to clarify

As for Lyanna being armed, well, we don't actually know that the squires were unarmed: the story doesn't say either way.

Howland, though, was armed - to start with.

"They snatched away his spear and knocked him to the ground, cursing him for a frogeater."

So if Lyanna had an advantage because the squires were unarmed, so too did Howland. And his weapon wasn't a tourney weapon, but a real one.

I'll grant, though, that he was taken by surprise and Lyanna wasn't, and also that the squires may have held back when they realised who Lyanna was.

What it comes down to is this: the only objection I can see to Lyanna being the KotLT is, 'but a girl couldn't have done that'. Now that's a valid argument. Lyanna had severe physical disadvantages in a fight with a knight, and probably lacked formal training. But the same applies to Ben or Howland. Yet one of them must have been the KotLT, despite that.

If we can make the leap to explain why Howland or Ben could do it despite their disadvantages, why can we not make the same leap for Lyanna? Why is it so unthinkable? And that is the impression that I'm getting: that Ben or Howland are merely unlikely, but Lyanna is a step beyond unlikely and into the realms of absurdity.

Has it anything to do with her sex? Because if it wasn't for her sex, she'd be the most likely candidate by far. I find it hard to see why her sex alone should take her from 'most likely' to 'completely out of the question'.

[AryaUnderfoot]

Originally Posted by Raven

Has it anything to do with her sex? Because if it wasn't for her sex, she'd be the most likely candidate by far. I find it hard to see why her sex alone should take her from 'most likely' to 'completely out of the question'.

Believe me, dear Raven, I am all for female fighters. And if we didn't find Lyanna believable as a fighter simply because of her sex, then we'd have to dismiss Brienne of Tarth and the Mormont women, who I frankly think are some of the coolest characters in the book. Not to mention Arya, who won her way into my heart with her ferocity and her unwillingness to conform to societal ideals.

The reason Lyanna as KoLT makes less sense to me simply boils down to probability. I can't see how her competing in the tourney would have remained a secret. Not to mention, I think it is more fathomable for the KoLT to be a crannogman- why would Meera and Jojen want Bran to know the story if it was Lyanna? How would that improve him? Their main focus is to get him to a place where he can learn to use his unique powers. They also both know that he has longed to be a knight himself since he was very young. IMO, that story was not just a time-filler- it was propaganda, of sorts. They were trying to show him that the world could be his oyster if he focused and learned as much as he could from those who could teach him. And it seemed to have worked.

[Jeroam]

What about that other part of the story? The part where the Howland stumbles upon the tournament because he was seeking the green men on the Isle of Faces. Who are those guys? The green men, the guardians of the Isle of Faces, are said to have dark green skin and leaves instead of hair, and antlers and ride elk. Are they the last of the Children of the Forest? Perhaps magic shamans from the first men? Greenseers? I mean, all of the other crazy legends we hear are about giants, and others, far beyond the wall in the land of always winter, but the Isle of Faces is right there, in the middle of the lake next to Harrenhall. I would totally pick the Isle of Faces for my spring break trip. Wouldn't you?