#anti-rhaegar

[ichooseviolence]

"The Red Keep was the safest place for Elia during the battle!" Except it wasn't. It should have been, but it wasn't. Tywin wasn't the only threat to Elia's life. Aerys held her and her children as hostages and was 100% willing to execute any of them if he felt that her family stepped out of line.

Elia was surrounded by enemies while her husband was away, and Dorne would have been the safest place for her. But if Elia went to Dorne with her children, then that means her family is free to take up arms against the T@rgaryens. So, who decided Elia should remain in Dragonstone? Was it Elia or Rh@egar? No way Elia would feel comfortable being so close to Aerys without her husband there. The more I think about this, the more ominous and disgusting I find it to be.

[hollowwhisperings]

Ned Stark's Rebellion: the better name for the uprising against Aerys II & Rhaegar Targaryen.

While the histories & adaptive works of ASOIAF name the events of ? to ? AC as being "Robert's Rebellion", that name is misleading. The uprising now known as "Robert's Rebellion" was, more truthfully, NED STARK'S Rebellion.

It was young Eddard Stark whose father & oldest brother were murdered by their king; Ned whose sister was kidnapped (Lyanna at 15 would still be considered underage, by the majority of Westeros); it was the Lords Paramount SUPPORTING NED whose heads were called for from King Aerys II. It was Ned who first called his banners, Ned's grievances that were rallied to, Ned's cause that people fought & died for. The rebellion was never about Robert Baratheon being mad about getting ditched by his [fiancee], nor his being "kinglier" than the options of Aerys II or Rhaegar.

Robert's grievance of his "beloved" betrothed getting Disappeared by the crown prince - dude met Lyanna, like, once? on record? his hype for the marriage seemed more about "being brothers with Ned" (whom he fostered with in the Vale) than about Lyanna herself (who grew up with Benjen in Winterfell) though Robert definitely fixated on the idea of her.

Robert is only named in the Rebellion because he ended up King. Robert only ended up King because NED never wanted the throne. Robert was crowned by DEFAULT.

he was young and charismatic where Hoster Tully & Jon Arryn were not;

he had more immediate royal heritage via a Targaryen grandmother (whilst Ned & Jon Arryn's kingship was of the North/Vale specifically, not Westeros as a "united" realm; Hoster's "kingship" over the Riverlands was due to House Tully swearing fealty to the Targaryen Conquerors in the stead of the wiped-out Mudd Kings);

Robert had brothers ("heirs") to rule the Stormlands (Renly) & Dragonstone (Stannis) while he sat the Throne: Jaime blue-screened after executing Aerys, spending his time on the pointy chair dissociating & panicking over who to give it to; Hoster's only son was still a kid; Jon Arryn had no family save his new wife & his foster-sons; Ned had Benjen (the Stark in Winterfell) and baby Robb. Ned was pardoned from kingly duties due to the throne room very probably still smelling of Roast Stark.

Tywin killed Elia & her kids, removing the Dornish Claim (& the sole reasons for Dorne's not joining the Rebellion officially);

The Reach were Targaryen Loyalists & losers of the war;

nobody wanted Balon Greyjoy in charge.

History was very much Written By The Victors, in the case of this civil war. At the time, everyone was wholly aware that Ned's Cause was Just & that Aerys II was a ticking timebomb. Dorne's hands were tied by geography (the Reach, on Team Targaryen, was between them and the Crownlands) and their princess + tiny children were hostages (Jaime was also a political hostage, keeping the Westerlands "loyal").

Yet, 16 years later, the rebellion is sung of & taught in an almost romantic fashion: "King Robert avenging his lost love!", "thousands died for a frigid woman", "Aerys did nothing wrong, actually", etc.

The sheer disconnect in opinion on such a recent historical evident, between the generation who lived it & those born during/after... it seems very deliberate. The Reach, in/famous Targaryen Loyalists, had a lot of backpedalling to do & made light of the King they'd fought for whilst ensuring their Maesters taught the history their NEW king liked better.

Ned retired quietly after the Rebellion, finally having time to mourn & having 2 babies to raise. That one of these babies had a bounty on its head only kept the Quiet Wolf quieter: the North keeps to itself and Ned's silence on the subject was respected/followed accordingly.

I very much wonder how the Rebellion was taught differently in the different parts of Westeros: Dorne remembers a beloved & lost Princess, the brutal murders of three innocents by Lord Lannister; The North recalls the silence of its lord, his awkwardly bringing a baby Stark home with him; the Red Keep fixated on Jaime's kingslaying and Robert's wartime heroics (any smallfolk staff who survived Aerys would have died or fled during The Sack, not sticking around lest Tywin kill them too).

The Adaption's Take on the Rebellion read like Anti-Baratheon, pro-Rhaegar Propoganda. Nevermind Elia & her children, nevermind Grandpa Rickard or Uncle Brandon.

Fandom loves to solve love triangles with poly but, in this case... Elia would DEFINITELY have seen Lyanna as being a child.

Elia was 3 years older than Rhaegar and 10 years older than Lyanna, being about 26/27 during the war. While Lyanna is confirmed as being 16 ar her death, the timing of her kidnapping & the playout of R+L=J... puts her as being 14/15 when first abducted. By Westerosi standards (16 for girls), and almost certainly by Dornish standards (plausibly a universal 18), Lyanna was Underage.

Age gaps aside, Elia was a princess twice over & raised with politics. Rhaegar's abducting Lyanna, without the leave of her legal guardian (her father, Lord Rickard) and in spite of Lyanna's being betrothed to a Lord Paramount (Robert Baratheon)? That is political unalivement. Any & all hopes the Lords Paramount held of Rhaegar's quietly retiring his father & being a decent king, as judged by his behavious thus far were immediately made moot.

(It should be noted that it is entirely plausible that, when Rhaegar slighted his wife at Harrenhal, Elia was PREGNANT: this makes the slight even worse, given that Rhaegar "repaid" Elia's nearly dying to "give him a son" by abandoning her (and their children). To his paranoid father. Who was regularly having people tortured and murdered, from the lowest of servants to the highest lords of the realm. So Rhaegar could kidnap himself a Northern Womb. For a vague prophecy he read in a book & his interpreting it to mean he needed 3 Targaryen children. Which he already had. Rhaenys, Aegon and HIS KID BROTHER VISERYS.)

ahem, my Strongly Worded Opinions on Prince Rhaegar aside, this has been a Commentary on the War of the Usurper & the poor logic of those pursuing prophecy.

(i'm pretty sure the realm as a whole would be safer & better equipped for a Long Winter if they hadn't, say, a civil war. which killed &/or orphaned a generation who were thusly less-prepared for rule & less able to prepare THEIR heirs before THEY were killed in ANOTHER civil war.)

[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.

[catofoldstones]

Idk which 16 year old needs to hear this but that 24 year old with a family is not into you. He’s just convinced that his child is the prince that was promised in an ancient, carried-down prophecy and only wants this child through you.

[katy-89]

asoiaf fandom when they talk about Daenerys and Rhaegar

[thewitchqueenofharrenhal]

I feeeeeel like people get so caught up on the idea of *romantic* love that everything Lyanna Stark adjacent devolves to how much Rhaegar or Robert must have desired her and her *gorgeous Helen of Troy beauty* -

When I think the love between Lyanna and her siblings is what makes me the most emotional 🥲. You get the purest, most tragic depictions of love and the *realest* depictions of *her* in reference to her brothers. The maiden that loved to ride horses, the maiden who liked to play fight with her brother, the maiden who cared that her father’s bannermen were treated with respect Vs the face that launched a civil war

For this reason I always feel so *disgruntled* when people try to compare Jon Snow foregoing everything to save Arya to Rhaegar & Lyanna when the clearest comparison is Ned & Lyanna and even Brandon to a degree.

Those two gave up their life and *cherished honor* not for romance, prophecy, or wealth but for their baby sister just like Jon 🥲

[sunspearesque]

i can't even begin to understand the thought process of rhaegar and his utterly absurd decision to take the most powerful kingsguards with him to either fight or to guard his 15-year-old mistress/abductee (?) and their babe with questionable legitimacy while leaving behind his wife and his two children (one of them is his fucking heir) to be guarded by who exactly? 16-year-old jaime lannister? (who was “guarding” the king that kept him “hostage”)

rhaegar knew damn well his father is going even more insane after a war he started by his utter stupidity and selfishness and they won’t be safe yet he didn’t bother to ensure their safety before he fucks off… the only explanation is that he didn’t give a flying fuck about anyone but himself and his delulu which makes him complicit in their tragic death as much as his mad daddy who kept them hostages and the lannisters who slaughtered them

[katerina-q]

If you ever feel delusional and stupid, just remember that asoiaf fans are using this FANFICTION quote for their anti Rhaegar and Lyanna agenda and they also think this bullshit is from the books.

I promise you, in the CANON BOOKS, Oberyn never spoke that way about Rhaegar and never slutshamed Lyanna :)

[montyluvsjasper]

Jonsa fans write 1000+ post of all the foreshadowing of Jonsa.

Jon and Sansa are structured in the story as the romantic leads respectively. Even Sansa antis have admitted the extreme parallels between Jon and “Alayne”. Jon Snow literally has dreams about burning people and thinks it's the most vile thing possible. Sansa wished/prayed for a strong knight to kill Janos Slynt, and Jon’s the one to do it. Jon dies trying to save who he thinks is Arya Stark.

No I don't care about your wolf howl, your blue rose or your Targaryen restoration.

[johannawesterling]

The fact that Howland Reed had to pry Ned away from Lyanna's dead body - and he disassociated so hard that he didn't remember any of that due to the trauma of his baby sister dying in his arms. GoD. And only, what, days before? His father and brother were butchered by the Mad King trying to find out what happened to Lyanna?

All for a prophecy? All for a disgusting POS who couldn't keep it in his pants? Fuck you, Rhaegar. Fuck you.

[elena--89]

Joffrey never loved Sansa and he didn't die with her name on his lips, unlike Rhaegar

-Lyanna died with Rhaegar's roses in her hand, something that Sansa would never do with Joffrey's roses or gifts. Lyanna wasn't an hostage, unlike Sansa

-Rhaegar is not portrayed as a monster in the books, unlike Joffrey. It doesn't matter how much you'all are trying to change canon to fit your nonsensical narrative

-Sansa is not a parallel to Lyanna, get over it

-If you want a good parallel with Rhaegar and Lyanna, read Jon and Ygritte's chapters and Bael the Bard tale

-If you want to understand Rhaegar and Lyanna better as characters, read Daenerys and Arya's chapters

Sansa stans, stop talking about Rhaegar and Lyanna, you don't know shit about these two and Grrm will never acknowledge your bullshit

[lilith-91]

those sansa/elia stans (literally the same fandom) throwing a fit over people liking rhaegar, arya, dany and the targaryens while stanning the greens and praising robert fucking baratheon will never not be funny.

you are no better than anyone, get off your high horse.

[hollowwhisperings]

"Targaryen Exceptionalism"

beginning in Old Valyria, Targaryens were but a minor House of dragonlords. yet the Valyrian Freehold was built with the blood of those enslaved beneath its nine volcanoes, ever digging for greater riches, and the horrific inventions of Valyria's sorcerers who tested their theories on the conquered to twist the natural into the supernatural.

(yes, i'm one of the theorists who take House Targaryen's "blood of the dragom" quite literally)

Upon surviving the Doom, House Targaryen was a dormant threat during the Century of Blood: then came Aegon, Visenya & Rhaenys who decided to found a new empire for themselves by "uniting Westeros"... at dragonpoint.

CW: Old Valyria, its hobbies of enslavement and eugenics, anti-imperialism, Targaryen-skepticism, Stark-skepticism, critique of historic Targaryens, critique of Prince Rhaegar, potential spoilers for The Dragon Shows.

There is no good justification for conquest, the genocide of entire families, for destroying holy sites, for dragonbombing civilians (Aegon & Visenya took out their vengeance for Rhaenys on the entirety of Dorne, who dared to defy the Targaryens just as Nymeria defied Valyria's efforts to destroy her people after leaving their home a toxic wasteland). A (hypothetical) prophecy of ice & fire was assumed by these dragonlords as an entitlement to an entire continent "united" under THEIR rule.

if Aegon truly cared about the future, about a threat to humanity, he could have proposed alliance with House Stark and the other Kingdoms of Westeros. marriage, trade, mutual ceasefire: there are many methods of peacibly uniting peoples for a future problem. no, any service for "a greater good" should come at the cost of smaller, everyday acts of goodness. Ser Davos said it best, when his king Stannis proposed the sacrifice of one child (Edric Storm, his own nephew) to secure a hypothetical victory for his army: the sacrifice of one child means everything, in the context of war & kingship.

Targaryen Exceptionalism became "codified" into the Faith of The Seven during the reign of King Jaeherys I: he sent seven speakers to walk Westeros, praising and preaching the goodness of the new king & the exceptional nature of Targaryens in the eyes of the divine. Dragons raise Targaryens from the laws of mortal men, Valyrian tradition supercedes common sense and human taboo. The speakers, at the orders of Jaeherys I (& Vermithor, Alysanne & Silverwing) Targaryens rule Westeros but were not of it nor subject to its rules.

After the last Targaryen dragon died, the case for Targaryen Exceptionalism was rendered hollow: by this point there had been some intermarrying of House Targaryen with the other houses of Westeros and its members were far removed from the memory of Valyria beyond romanticized legend & its language (also spoken and used by peoples of Essos, descendants of escaped slaves & those once-conquered).

By the timeline of the main series of ASOIAF, the views on House Targaryen are polarizing: King Robert Baratheon saw any Targaryen as an abomination, laughing at the horror wrought unto Princess Elia's children and Princess Elia herself (again Dorne is considered an "acceptable target" by wider Westeros), demanding the death of pregnant 13 yr old Daenerys in AGoT; Ned Stark finds the murder of children horrific, like any sane person would, despite being the most wounded (surviving) party of House Targaryen and the actual rallying point of Robert's Rebellion; Daenerys, on the childhood memories told to her by her brother, by her hatching dragons... Daenerys renders herself Exceptional.

Targaryen Exceptionalism OUTSIDE of the ASOIAF books & shows is more questionable: the POVs we are given and the presentation of dragons & valyrian steel as a natural means of opposing Winter Personfied results in a fanbase who have bought into Valyrian exceptionalism almost entirely. Secret Targaryens are found or made because it is Assumed that, because past Targaryens claimed & proved themselves exceptional, because Daenerys Stormborn is exceptional... only those with dragon blood can be exceptional. This is not unique to House Targaryen: Stark blood and First Men heritage is also of much ado, based on the likes of Robb, Bran, & Arya Stark (Tully-Starks).

Brynden Rivers, Euron Greyjoy, Vladymr Six-Skins, & Jojen Reed demonstrate the magic in First Men blood; House Dayne's ancestral sword, Dawn, & their purple eyes draw theories of Valyrian exceptionalism several thousand years prior to the Freehold's existence; the black stone castles found throughout Westeros also kindle theories of anachronistic Valyrians (despite dragons existing throughout the histories of Westeros & Essos well before their becoming so intimately linked with Valyria or Targaryens).

Then there are the Sons of Ice & Fire: Brynden Rivers, a Targaryen bastard of a Blackwood mother, currently a tree wizard freezing beyond the wall; Jon Snow, of R + L = J. There was That Dragon Show, which romanticized such a Song by skipping over that whole "15 year old disappears without word, Kingsguard keeping her in a distant tower & attempting to murder her brother"; "Lord Rickard and his heir being tortured & burned to death, Aerys II subsequently calling for the heads of several other Lords Paramount"; "Prince Rhaegar's abandoning his wife & small children in his father's court, sparing a lone hostage-kingsguard for 4 royals & a city", etc. There was the "romance" between an undead king who sought a desperate alliance & his, unknown to them, young aunt who ditched her existing subjects in Essos for a pointy chair in a home she knows nothing of.

No one came out of That Dragon Show looking any good, the characters at its end being shadows of themselves by its end.

The NEW Dragon Show is set in the "Golden Age" of House Targaryen in Westeros: their game of musical chairs bloody and cruel, forced unto each generation by the fears & ambitions of those before them (children parenting children, grandfathers & second sons seeking power greater than the might they hold already).

I worry over The Sowing of Seeds: will Targaryen Exceptionalism be codified as true? will the Hiccup Method, nurture revealing itself as mattering more than nature?

I hope for the latter: any victory that belatedly justifies the horrors of Old Valyria, the cruelties of House Targaryen on its own children, the celebration of feudal monarchy as something heroic & inspirational... these things would sully the primary themes of ASOIAF: the hypocricies demanded of chivalry, the futility of war, the struggles of those rejected by songs & storybooks. eugenics is setdressing, not an ideal (both targaryen & stark exceptionalism awkwardly based within that concept, however innocently-intended).

[rise-my-angel]

If I had a nickle for everytime fandom glorified some emo loser shitbag I wouldn't be poor anymore.

Everyone claims people loved Rhaegar but like no one can name a single friend he had that wasn't men who WORKED for him. He had no friends, he just played sad songs on his harp singing that no one wants to listen to his obsessive prophecy rants anymore.

He got crushed to death by a war hammer. The way Rhaegar died was cooler then he was as a living person.

Meanwhile Ned Stark is out here calling the King fat to his face, strangling a dude in the street in broad daylight for insinuating a joke about his wife, arguing with the Queen seconds after he woke up from a feverish sleep, and letting his kids all keep Wolf pups as pets that he KNOWS will grow to be the size of a fucking car.

Put up anything Rhaegar did and I'll match it with anything Ned Stark did but that he did it cooler more unhinged and didn't have to be a creep while doing it.

[hieronymph]

Had to see another post in Elia Martell tag about how Elia is a silent victim and how we don't know if she was really angry or upset with Rhaegar's infidelity.

A woman who was a Princess of a progressive kingdom which values women for being more than child incubators

Had to move to a racist court to marry a man who was delusional and who forced her to become a broodmare and got her pregnant in quick succession even after she was bedridden

Had to deal with said husband being a deadbeat father who didn't protect her and their daughter from his racist father and stayed silent

Was kept as a hostage by her racist FIL so he can blackmail and extort from her brother to send her kingdom's men to fight and die in a war that wasn't theirs

This definitely sounds like something a woman from a progressive nation, who is ridiculed and treated with distrust for her race, would be ok with. Right?

There are so many blanks in the books about so many things yet we all come up with detailed and nuanced theories to

fill those blanks.

Yet, some of yall can't fill the very simple gaps left about Elia's response to her husband's infidelity, disrespect and forced impregnation.

You operate under this belief that GRRM didn't mention that she wasn't upset so of course, she wasn't angry at Rhaegar or his actions.

Sure that is exactly the way to digest whatever content GRRM writes.

Are yall deliberately this obtuse?

Please get out of Elia Martell tags with such shit takes.

[catofoldstones]

One of the greatest crimes of Rhaegar that rarely anyone talks about is the reproductive abuse he did to Elia and Lyanna. He endangered both their lives just so he could have his prophecy children (Elia was bedridden after Rhaenys's birth and he impregnated her again too soon, and Lyanna was fifteen aka not physically mature enough). And how he abandoned them both without providing them what they actually needed, Elia needed good protection and Lyanna needed good healthcare. He was failure as a son, as a husband and as a prince. A complete loser.

He was a failure as a son, as a husband and as a prince. A COMPLETE LOSER!!