#i know most people probably hate 261 because The Peoples Princess is Still Gone

[sukutrauma]

i've never drawn yuta before! hope i did him justice :3

[janiedean]

on jon connington, elia martell and his character faults

for @asoiafpridefest defest​, day one: favorite lgbta+ character.

premise: it’s not a mystery that my favorite lgbta+ character in asoiaf is good old jon connington. goes unsaid that I’ve read a lot of opinions on the subject of his perceived racism when it comes to his treatment of elia martell and while I agree that it’s hardly stellar, I would like to present you a piece of meta in which I argue that it’s not because he’s racist, it’s because he’s jealous, which makes the entire thing kind of different, and also that he actually (imo) doesn’t hate elia that much all things considered.

what I’d like to argue: jon c’s issue is that jealousy is a bad character trait and doesn’t make him any favors and he is indeed jealous of elia, but that doesn’t mean he’s automatically racist, because he doesn’t have a problem with elia for who she is, he has a problem with elia for what she represents (ie what he can’t have) and he wants to be in her place and he resents her for it, but he’s not having issues with her because she’s dornish.

now, let’s start with the actual quotes in which he thinks about her/talks about her in his chapters:

Griff had heard enough of the captain-general’s cowardice. “We will not be alone. Dorne will join us, must join us. Prince Aegon is Elia’s son as well as Rhaegar’s.”

+

“Waiting.” He frowned. “For what?” Without Daenerys and her dragons, Dorne was central to their hopes. “Write Sunspear. Doran Martell must know that his sister’s son is still alive and has come home to claim his father’s throne.”

+

Does he know? Griff wondered. How much did Myles tell him?Varys had been adamant about the need for secrecy. The plans that he and Illyrio had made with Blackheart had been known to them alone. The rest of the company had been left ignorant. What they did not know they could not let slip.

That time was done, though. “No man could have asked for a worthier son,” Griff said, “but the lad is not of my blood, and his name is not Griff. My lords, I give you Aegon Targaryen, firstborn son of Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone, by Princess Elia of Dorne … soon, with your help, to be Aegon, the Sixth of His Name, King of Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.”

these are the least relevant quotes to our argument, but still: he calls her by her rightful name as aegon’s mother after specifying aegon is not his. I don’t think there’s much to go over here since it’s what anyone would have said by presenting him, but still, he spoke giving her the rightful title never mind what his feelings for her are. the other times, he reminds people that he’s also elia’s son and not R’s only, obviously also for politics reasons, but still, he does that.

second occasion, slightly more relevant:

Last night he’d dreamt of Stoney Sept again. Alone, with sword in hand, he ran from house to house, smashing down doors, racing up stairs, leaping from roof to roof, as his ears rang to the sound of distant bells. Deep bronze booms and silver chiming pounded through his skull, a maddening cacophony of noise that grew ever louder until it seemed as if his head would explode.

Seventeen years had come and gone since the Battle of the Bells, yet the sound of bells ringing still tied a knot in his guts. Others might claim that the realm was lost when Prince Rhaegar fell to Robert’s warhammer on the Trident, but the Battle of the Trident would never have been fought if the griffin had only slain the stag there in Stoney Sept. The bells tolled for all of us that day. For Aerys and his queen, for Elia of Dorne and her little daughter, for every true man and honest woman in the Seven Kingdoms. And for my silver prince.

now, this is way more interesting and I rarely see this part brought up, but imoit’s clear as rain that this guy has spents eventeen years blaming himself for the rebellion’s outcome and guess what, he’s listing the specific people who died for it in increasing order of importance, and elia is third just after rhaenys and RHAEGAR, as in, his silver prince, from which it’s blatantly obvious that he’s still in love with him as if the rest of the narration hadn’t made that clear. but like, if he hated her as a person, deep down, would he be sorry she was dead? would he be sorry rhaenys died? wouldn’t he say something less flattering? I doubt cersei lannister would have had thought about it twice.

that said, let’s go over to the one quote in question that gives him his admittedly bad rep when it comes to elia:

“My lord does have one prize to offer,” Haldon Halfmaester pointed out. “Prince Aegon’s hand. A marriage alliance, to bring some great House to our banners.”

A bride for our bright prince. Jon Connington remembered Prince Rhaegar’s wedding all too well. Elia was never worthy of him. She was frail and sickly from the first, and childbirth only left her weaker. After the birth of Princess Rhaenys, her mother had been bedridden for half a year, and Prince Aegon’s birth had almost been the death of her. She would bear no more children, the maesters told Prince Rhaegar afterward.

at this point, I would like to point out that he doesn’t think of elia at once.

it says he remembered rhaegar’s wedding.

now, let’s do a bit of math: rhaegar was born in 259 AC. jonc was born in 260 or 261 according to asoiafwiki, which means that he was one year or two younger. rhaegar got engaged to elia in 279 and married her in 280, so he was 20/21 when that happened and jonc in between 18-20 when that happened. now why would I be doing all this math?

spoiler: because jonc doesn’t ever mention looking at anyone else in his life bar maybe miles toyne who was his commander in the golden company and if we want to interpret it like that, it was a friends with benefits thing, not a love thing, and he met R when he was squiring. people in general become squires when they’re like, 10-13 roughly, which means that this guy has pined after rhaegar throughout his teenage years knowing fully well that a) he didn’t have a chance with him, b) that rhaegar most likely was not into men or he’d have known, c) that he could never act on that attraction nor actually tell him because I highly doubt that the only heir to a fairly important house in westeros goes around telling people he’s openly gay, or I mean, doesn’t seem to me like loras and renly were parading it around. which means that he’s never actually gotten over R and he had to be around the man he loved without being able to act on it.

now, if the person you were in love with your whole life married someone else and you had to attend the wedding, would you enjoy it? most probably not and neither did he, because *he remembers the wedding*, but it’s not like he could tell anyone or find himself another guy to forget R with, because you don’t exactly do that in westeros and it’s the middle ages, unless I miss the point where gay marriage was approved.

and here we are at the main point, as in: whoever rhaegar married, jon would have disliked/hated/found a reason to dislike because the point wasn’t the person specifically, was that the person was in a position he could never actually dream of having. if it had been cersei he’d have thought that she was too proud or too much of an asshole for someone as nice and kind and generous as rhaegar, if it had been lyanna he’d have thought she was too ugly and wild for him, if it had been catelyn he’d have thought she was too demure, I don’t know, but the entire point is that he would have hated them or disliked them because they would have had a chance with R in the first place and HE couldn’t, and not like cersei because a rival passed in front of him when she was sure she’d get to marry him. no, he wouldn’t have had a chance with him period.

now, age discourse as above: if this guy spent his teenage years pining after R and R got married just after they were finished, it’s kind of obvious that he’s jealous of her the way you’re jealous of your crush’s partner when you’re fifteen and the fact that she was frail and couldn’t give him children is the perfect excuse he gives himself for thinking she wasn’t worthy of him. and he’s telling that to himself to make himself feel better about how much he probably wanted to stab himself in the gut during the wedding. but the problem isn’t elia. that everyone else hates elia for actual political/racial/discrimination reasons is a point, but he hates her because she was R’s wife, not because he hates her as a person, and actually guess what he feels guilty as hell about her death, so much that she’s up in the top three people he feels most guilty about along with R and rhaenys. I’d argue that it’s not so much about elia rather than what she represents.

and like, point is: jealousy is an ugly thing. jealousy is a bad thing. I don’t see the point in it. I think it makes your life a worse place.

but, it’s one of jon’s character faults. because in these books, people have faults, and this guy’s is that he can’t see past the fact that it’s not elia’s responsibility to give R children or to be worthy of him, but the point is also that he sees R with absolute rose-tinted glasses and in his point of view he could do no wrong ever, because he was in love with him and still is or he wouldn’t have accepted to pretend he died in poverty and disgrace to raise…rhaegar and elia’s son, so like, as much as he tells himself she wasn’t worthy of him he still doesn’t seem to have any problem raising the kid. a kid his long-lost love had with someone else (for the sake of this argument let’s not go into the whether aegon is real or not debate because he thinks he is, so it doesn’t really matter).

the point is that if he behaved more maturely about it he would realize that thinking that of elia is the kind of thing you do at fifteen and you outgrow, except that he hasn’t outgrown that (fully at least). it’s a character fault. does not make him racist.

and other than that, jon doesn’t exactly a) speak ill of the dornish, b) speak ill of essosi and whatever else, c) show any specific prejudice towards the dornish/the essosi/whoever else (hell, he lived in essos half of his life..), so I really doubt that he has a problem with people who aren’t white or westerosi. no, he has a problem with the fact thatsomeone married R and that she was dornish is incidental.

imo, when it comes to elia he dislikes her for reasons that are more his problem than hers and the whole ‘she’s too frail for him’ thing is the justification he gives himself for hating her…. when he’s still kicking himself for her death, too, and rhaenys’s, and about everyone else’s on top of rhaegar’s seventeen years later and when for how much he might dislike what she stood for he still raised her son like his own and doesn’t go around not reminding people of both sides of his heritage and still refers to her properly at least when he’s talking about her to other people.

and for that matter, I would like to compare the infamous unworthy of R. quote with what cersei thinks of elia (which is instead without a doubt fairly racist at least imo). we have:

cersei: It had to have been the madness that led Aerys to refuse Lord Tywin’s daughter and take his son instead, whilst marrying his own son to a feeble Dornish princess with black eyes and a flat chest.

vs:

jonc, again: Elia was never worthy of him. She was frail and sickly from the first, and childbirth only left her weaker.

jon says elia wasn’t worthy of rhaegarand that she was frail and sickly, so he’s latching to the most obvious excuse he could find to see a reason why she wasn’t worthy of R same as no other woman would have been because she wasn’t him, but while he’s not repressed in the sense that he doesn’t deny himself that he loves rhaegar, he doesn’t go and say and I wish I could have been in her place because he knows he couldn’t be. he’s a man. he couldn’t. but no one else was worthy of the guy he loved. 

cersei instead latches to actual specific physical attributes that elia had ie the black eyes and a flat chest which are actually fairly discriminatory in their essence because she’s judging her on her physical features - ie dornish - so she’s comparing herself as tywin’s beautiful and worthy daughter and thinking, how could he have married that other woman beneath me when he could have had someone so much better?, so actually cersei’s discourse is fairly discriminatory if not straight-up racist and on top of that she actually insult’s elia’s intelligence (because she’s so much better, right?) and calls her feeble which is not exactly a compliment, which is a thing that jonc doesn’t do at any point ever. he never insults elia’s intelligence or her appearance. mostly because he doesn’t even notice her appearance being into men, but nevermind that.  

the point is that if you look at those statements, cersei’s born out of genuine hatred for elia who she loathes because she’s dornish and whose appearance and intelligence she insults because she got married to R instead of her (otherwise she probably wouldn’t have even noticed her) and she didn’t and she doesn’t even use her name period, so that’s actually pretty damn racist, jonc’s is born out of resentment for the fact that elia married R and he didn’t have a chance to be with him never mind marrying him but he has nothing horrid to say about her as a person or about the dornish as a people and the only thing he can come up with to speak ill of her is the fact that she couldn’t give rhaegar the children that according to westerosi society spouses should (translation: are obligated to and are seen as faulty if they don’t) give their husbands. and he does use her full name and title at least. and he still feels guilty about her death.

of course, coming to a conclusion to this rant: irrationally disliking the woman the person you love married is not a good character trait, but jonc being in love with R explains fully his dislike for elia because if she hadn’t married him he most likely wouldn’t have had a problem with her, period. but still, that makes him flawed and unnecessarily jealous, not racist or more misogynist than the westeros average.

and that was my two cents, thanks for coming to my ted talk.