I’m not sure that’s all she is.
admittedly, the reason I get so defensive about her has a lot to do with the fact that the way she’s treated is undeniably racialized, both within and without the narrative.
as a woman of color, it does get grating.
at king’s landing, she was disrespected and isolated from all sides, by her husband and by the court. in fandom spaces, she’s too often reduced to a stereotype, the accepting dornish scorned wife who was totes okay with her husband cheating!! of course she was!! I mean, he humiliated her, left her all alone in a court in which she wasn’t safe, she ended up defiled, raped and murdered but she was just peachy!! after all, she could have been a better wife!! if only she had been more like lyanna!!
it’s a very common sort of nonsense people sprout about her (even in the text, just look at barristan’s povs) and for those of us who care deeply for the martells, there’s bound to be a huge divide between that false perception and what we know for certain about her, which then cause people to defend her.
still, there’s so much more to her than just being a sad character who deserved better, even though that fact may warrant love on its own imo.
elia may not seem overtly relevant but she’s still a disabled woman of color, whose memory is fiercely guarded by her kins, someone who’s constantly referred to as kind, dignified and compassionate. the love oberyn and doran feel for her, their grief is what is driving their actions in the books, which is definitely moving.
there’s also the way her death is framed, which is something I’m more than willing to critize but the effect can’t be denied. her death was violent and needlessly barbaric. it caused a rift between robert and ned, it’s always talked about with disapproval and regret and it marked the moment when tywin’s gratuitous ruthlessness finally antagonized ned to all lannisters, an antagonism at the root of the events in agot. she’s at the heart of the tragedy that started it all, a tragedy that still drives our story forward years and years after the fact.
moreover, her plight, the fact that she was forgotten, brushed aside in life while her loved ones rage in her name is very much thematically coherent with asoiaf as a whole, as a series that champion the value of life, of legacies and the importance of striving for justice, even if it feels hopeless.
when oberyn is shouting at the mountain to say elia’s name, he’s challenging the lannisters and their willingness to destroy and erase all that oppose them, that will liken them to the others so strikingly. he’s standing for life, for a woman that should have lived but never did and for that waste to be acknowledged and respected.
if the point isn’t to root for that, to stand for that and defend her name too, then I don’t know what it is.
