#Lynesse Hightower

[chasingthedragons]

Gowns of House Hightower

GREEN AND GOLD

The green of House Hightower worn by Queen Alicent, Lady Lynesse, the ladies of House Hightower who attended the royal wedding of Princess Rhaenyra and Princess Helaena.

LIGHT BLUE & BLUE

Secondary House Hightower colors used by Queen Alicent, Queen Helaena and Princess Jaehaera, softer and gentler colors for sweet and sensitive ladies.

[goodqueenaly]

Hello Good Queen Alysanne, I have a question about Jorah Mormont and Lynesse Hightower. Was the marriage doomed from the start? Was there anything they could do to make it work (e.g. Jorah temper her expectations about the Bear Island)? I remember Catelyn said something along the line of she was unprepared for a life in the North, but eventually adapted to it.

Here’s the thing, though: we’re talking about a marriage not just between two very different people from two extremely difficult cultural backgrounds, but one which had not even been on the radar for either until maybe a week or so before it took place - and that I think is being generous with the timeline. Catelyn and Ned had certainly not known each other, in any deeply personal way, before their wedding, and each had certainly grown up (though perhaps somewhat less so, for the Jon Arryn-raised Ned) in a family and a society very different the other’s, but Catelyn had been taught from a young age to be the dutiful inheritor of her father’s political designs - and from the age of 12, had understood that duty meant eventually marrying the heir to Winterfell, becoming its lady, and continuing the Stark dynasty. Likewise, while Ned had never expected to become Lord of Winterfell or marry his brother’s fiancée, he had certainly understood the wartime necessity of taking Catelyn as his bride and preserving the rebellion’s alliances via marriage. This is not to say, of course, that Catelyn immediately adapted to being Ned’s wife and that she never experienced any struggles during her marriage; it took her time to “[find] the good sweet heart beneath Ned's solemn face”, and some aspects of life in the North always remained foreign to her - the godswood sacred to Ned’s faith, or the (ostensibly) bastard son whose origins Ned angrily refused to detail . Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say Ned and Catelyn’s marriage succeeded, at least in part, because Catelyn came into the marriage understanding the politico-dynastic duty impressed on her for a large chunk of her pre-marital life by her father, because Ned too understood and accepted the the duty he had to marry her during the Rebellion, and because both Ned and Catelyn spent years developing passion and devotion toward one another, alongside that duty.

By contrast, what could even be said of Jorah’s and Lynesse’s respective expectations going into their wedding and marriage? Jorah very explicitly had only married Lynesse because he “could not take [his] eyes off her”at the joust, purely acting on his physical attraction to her. Lynesse, for her part, had no reason to have known who Jorah even was, except perhaps on the most general level, ahead of and even during the tourney: if she was pleased to accept the favor of a hero of the recent war, a lord in his own right and a bannerman of the victorious king���s closest friend, she likely had as little knowledge of Jorah personally as he did her. Compounding that is, as I mentioned, the incredibly short timeframe of their marriage: Jorah asked for Lynesse’s hand immediately after winning the joust, and they married while Jorah was still in Lannisport for the tourney, meaning that they were going to the altar having been quite literally complete strangers at most a week, if not a few days, before the wedding. Even if Jorah and/or Lynesse had wanted to get to know each other as marriage partners before their wedding day - and Jorah certainly doesn’t seem to have been interested, in any event - there was simply no time to do so: before either, but especially Lynesse, may have realized the full implications of what to come, Lord Leyton had already signed away his youngest daughter’s future to Jorah.

In Lannisport, in those bare handful of days, it may have been easy for Jorah, and perhaps Lynesse as well, to imagine their future as one of sunshine and roses. Literally riding high on his very recent and illustrious knighthood and his unstoppable victories during the joust, in the warmth and wealth of the oldest and southernmost city in Westeros, Jorah may have thought that the realities of Bear Island life seemed physically and culturally very far away. Lynesse, still just a teenager and one who, as the youngest of a large and wealthy family, had likely lived a pretty sheltered life, may have seen Jorah as no more and no less than what he appeared as before her - a spectacularly talented tourney knight and war hero, a lord in his own right who could make her a lady of her own castle and House, as her sisters Leyla and Denyse were not. (Let’s never forget the creepiness of Jorah being almost two decades older than Lynesse.) The deliberately fantastic environment of what for lack of a better term we have to call their courtship and engagement - even for the most high-ranking Westerosi aristocrats, life is usually not feasts and tourneys 24/7 - only heightened the lack of reality at the foundation of their marriage; their entire experience of one another had been defined by a purposefully temporary world of pleasure which could never have been sustained.

Consequently, I think both Jorah and Lynesse experienced, on their return to Bear Island, disillusionment so profound that there was no making the marriage work. Jorah tells Dany that Lynesse resented that Bear Island was “too cold, too damp, too far away”, that the Mormonts “had no masques, no mummer shows, no balls or fairs”, and that the Mormont “cook knew little beyond his roasts and stews”, but I think these complaints reflect a more fundamental alienation Lynesse was feeling in her new role. Bear Island wasn’t just different from Oldtown; it was a world whose entire life and existence could not be compared to that of Lynesse’s native city. Her faith, her experience with Oldtown’s intellectual and artistic culture and the Reach’s tradition of chivalry, her training as a southron lady - none of that had any place on Bear Island. She was, as Jorah’s aunt and cousins may have reminded her (or commented in her hearing), the lady Jorah “won … in a tourney”, a lady whose “soft hands were never made for axes … nor her teats for giving suck” - in other words, a failure compared to the Mormont ideal lady who had a baby on one hip and an axe in her other hand. She had married a lord, a war hero, and a champion jouster, only to find herself stuck as lady of a castle only so called by courtesy, on an island that to Lynesse probably seemed physically and culturally in the middle of nowhere, with a husband who never again either took up arms in war (at least in Westeros) or distinguished himself on the tourney field.

Jorah clearly grew to resent and eventually hate Lynesse, but he was far from blameless in this situation. It had been Jorah who had, on no greater impulse than his physical attraction to Lynesse, taken a likely sheltered teenager from the only home she had ever known to one only he of the two of them knew and understood; it had been Jorah who had courted (again, to the extent we can call it that) the daughter of one of the wealthiest lords in Westeros from one of the most ancient reacher aristocratic families with absolutely no practical plan on how he could make Lynesse comfortable and happy in this new world; his best option in his mind was to spend money he very well knew he didn’t have and pursue a jousting career in which he knew very well he wasn’t cut out to succeed. Could Jorah truly be shocked that Lynesse “grew wild when [he] spoke of pawning her jewels”, or “moved into the manse of a merchant prince named Tregar Ormollen” after he, Jorah, became a sellsword? Far from fulfilling whatever expectations (again, likely at least founded in unreality) Lynesse may have had of this marriage, Jorah was now asking Lynesse to give up her remaining connections to those expectations and that foundation - the jewels she may have easily received as the daughter of rich Lord Hightower, the position of Westerosi lady marriage to Jorah had offered her.

Ultimately, I think this marriage was destined to fail because neither could ever be what the other may have gone into the marriage expecting. Lynesse could not be forever the tourney fantasy he had encountered at Lannisport - the beautiful highborn maid cheering him on from the sidelines as he won tilt after tilt in a tourney on the heels of his wartime fame. Jorah could not be forever the image Lynesse encountered at that tourney - the lord in his own right, the recent war hero and royally dubbed knight, the spectacular tourney champion. Jorah could not offered Lynesse the life of ease, security, and aristocratic culture she had grown up living with and perhaps consequently expecting; Lynesse could not offer Jorah the perfect highborn southron maid who would at the same time perfectly accept life as a Mormont bride.

[plejaades]

the way it's been almost a year since i last posted. waaa waaa mental health etc. stopped drawing for a while, now i'm drawing again. and here's lynesse hightower! 💖

[ophelias-lamentation]

Can you do Hightower hair?? Especially Lynesse and Alerie

The hightowers follow the Tyrell’s and the rest of the Reach with the flowers, ribbons, and pearls. The have hair that’s is heavily inspired by the regency era and keep the hair very tall, high hair hightowers. The top right and middle are some that i could see Lynesse wearing since they are just so over the top. The two on the left are more Alerie since they have the flowers. Alicent wedding hair is imo one of the best hairstyles from Hotd, exactly what I would imagine a noble lady wearing.

[efpizza]

Jorah Mormont's wedding portrait with his second wife, Lady Lynesse Hightower

---

"To celebrate his victory (-over the Greyjoys), Robert ordained that a tourney should be held outside Lannisport. It was there I saw Lynesse, a maid half my age.

The first time I beheld her, I thought she was a goddess come to earth, the Maid herself made flesh. Her birth was far above my own. She was the youngest daughter of Lord Leyton Hightower of Oldtown. 

I crowned Lynesse queen of love and beauty, and that very night went to her father and asked for her hand. I was drunk, as much on glory as on wine. By rights I should have gotten a contemptuous refusal, but Lord Leyton accepted my offer. We were married there in Lannisport, and for a fortnight I was the happiest man in the wide world."

-Jorah, ACOK

[sofikiii]

Ever thought of Ser Jorah Mormont and/or Lynesse Hightower?

You pretty, he ugly, u swan, he frog !!!!!!

[vriska-martell]

— asoiaf women and who they share similarities with

a clash of kings - daenerys i / a clash of kings - catelyn vii / a storm of swords - arya iii / a game of thrones - tyrion i / a feast for crows - cat of the canals

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

HotD seems a bit kinder to Ser Otto and Queen Alicent and now even Ser Gwayne. Granted the Hightowers we meet in the main story are only just briefly mentioned by other characters, but what do hear of them like Leyton or Lynesse aren't that great. The Lannister get a lot of (not undeserved) flack from within the fandom, but are under-the-radar terrible as Houses like the Lannisters or even the Freys or Boltons?

I wouldn't say HOTD is kinder to the Hightowers, as much as it allows them to be real people and not just historical caricatures or empty shells. (The biggest failure of F&B's history book conceit, more than any of the other problems with that book.)

For example, Gwayne in the book gets assigned to the Gold Cloaks to keep an eye on them in case some are still loyal to Daemon, and then during the Fall of King's Landing gets murked by his own men because indeed they are still loyal to Daemon. That's it, that's all there is to him, there's no there there. (Although the "You turncloaks!" "Daemon gave us these cloaks and they're gold no matter how you turn them." is a great line, and I hope it's kept even if Gwayne may not be involved.)

Gwayne in the show, however, is a prissy classist racist aristocrat, who is still brave in battle and protective of his sister and caring for his nephew; he's a knight who helps depict GRRM's knighthood themes with Criston; he's an actual person, both good and bad as a GRRM character should be. I have hopes that Gwayne takes the Ser Hobert Hightower role for the Caltrops and Second Tumbleton, that would be a great ending (especially considering his relationship with Daeron) for an excellent actor.

Re the main story Hightowers -- well, generally GRRM goes by Tolstoy's principle of "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Or as he put it, "happy families are boring." Not everyone always gets along in real families, and even the most beloved king and queen can be real assholes to their daughters. I imagine that when we actually meet Leyton in TWOW and find out exactly how complicated his family is -- four wives and ten children, you know there's friction there -- we'll see something imperfect, but different from the Lannisters, Freys, or Boltons. Maybe more dysfunctional the way Cregan Stark's family was dysfunctional or the Tyrells are dysfunctional. (If you think they're a perfectly happy family, then you entirely missed Olenna's relationship with Mace, Mace's relationship with Willas and Loras, Mace's relationship with Margaery, Olenna's relationship with Alerie, and so on and so forth.)

I can see Leyton as a patriarch who became increasingly distant as he got more into esoteric research (he hasn't come down from the top of the Hightower in more than a decade), leaving the eldest son Baelor to manage everything practical in the absence of his father. Was Leyton already half-distant the year before he stopped leaving the Hightower, and that's why he let his youngest daughter (only 16 or 17 years old) marry a newly knighted 35-year-old poor-ass lord from the back of beyond just because he did well in a tourney? How did the rest of the family react to that? The people of Oldtown don't think much of Lynesse now, but how did they feel when their young golden lady was taken away by a bear? These kinds of complicated relationships are the sort of detail GRRM loves to sink his teeth into, and is one of the reasons I'm so looking forward to Sam's Oldtown chapters almost more than anything in TWOW.

[crazy-dane-art]

Bear Island is no place for a lady...

[coldraindropsss]

Malora Hightower, Alerie Hightower, Lynesse Hightower

[thaliajoy-blog]

“Tell me the name of your ghost, Jorah. You know all of mine.”

“What did she look like, your Lady Lynesse?”

Ser Jorah smiled sadly. “Why, she looked a bit like you, Daenerys.”

[kingsmakers]

Maelora Targaryen + Which Witch

Forever tag: @juliaswickcrs @thatmagickjuju @starcrossedjedis @darkwolf76 @akabluekat

@drbobbimorse @mystic-scripture @iron-parkr @asirensrage @rhaenyraslaena

@arrthurpendragon @hiddenqveendom @ofbriarandrose @emilykaldwen @themaradwrites

Maelora tag: @noeverse

[hellshee]

I worried that given leave of your father's shadow, you might wither in King's Landing's sun. But you stood tall. Know that Old Town stands with you.

[alienoryva]

—QUEEN OF LOVE AND BEAUTY—

🪻Princess Daenerys Targaryen :

named by Ser Simon Dondarrion in the journey celebrating the completion of dragonpit in 55 AC (cr by: dalbe)

🪻Queen Alysanne Targaryen :

named by Ser Ryam Redwyne in the 10th anniversary tourney in 58 AC (cr by: Elenya.art)

🪻Princess/Queen Rhaenyra i Targaryen :

named by Ser Criston Cole in a tourney staged in 104 AC (cr by: Magali Villeneuve)

🪻Queen Naerys Targaryen :

named by Her Brother Prince Aemon The Dragonknight, Who was disguised as a mystery knight known as The Knight of tears (cr by: Hylora)

🪻Princess/Queen Rhaella Targaryen :

named by Ser Bonifer Hasty (cr by: Bella Bergolts)

🪻Lady Lyanna Stark :

named by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen at the tourney at Harrenhal (cr by: louvie Haller)

🪻Lady Lynesse Hightower :

named by Ser Jorah Mormont at the tourney at Lannisport (cr by: blackbettyes)

🖇️

unknown daughter of lord ashford at the opening tourney at ashford meadow in 209AC.

unknown daughter of lord Walter whent and lady Shella whent at reigning Queen at the opening of the tourney at harrenhal.

[teen-spirited-away]

House Hightower

"We Light The Way"

Sigil: A Watchtower Crowned with Fire

Colors: Smoke-Grey, White, Red/Yellow

Seat: Hightower/Oldtown

The Road Ahead is Uncertain, but The End is Clear

The Hightowers are religious, obscure, wise, conservative, influential, knowledgeable, and traditional.

House Hightower values tradition, ancient knowledge, and the Faith of The Seven.

*Book House Color Accurate Version*

[faircastle]

icb lynesse hightower was literally right about everything.