"Prince Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna, and thousands died for it." - ADWD, The Kingbreaker
"Rhaegar had chosen Lyanna Stark of Winterfell. [...] Elia of Dorne, though she was good and gentle; had she been chosen, much war and woe might have been avoided." - ADWD, The Kingbreaker
"Tyrion agreed silently. Baelor Hightower was no longer young, but he remained Lord Leyton's heir; wealthy, handsome, and a knight of splendid repute. Baelor Brightsmile, they called him now. Had Elia wed him in place of Rhaegar Targaryen, she might be in Oldtown with her children growing tall around her. He wondered how many lives had been snuffed out by that fart." ASOS, Tyrion X
"How could he do that? Did the Dornish woman treat him so ill?" - ASOS, Daenerys IV
Thousands died cause Rhaegar ran off with Lyanna, if he'd stuck to his wife much war and woe would've been avoided, if Elia hadn't married Rhaegar she'd be alive, happy and get to grow old, wow Elia must've treated him like shit otherwise why would he do that to her... And so on.
All these are canon quotes.
But sure, tell me why Rhaegar is not in any way responsible for his family's gruesome fates, supposedly according to the author.
Clearly the author blames.
He glorifies him in a what could have been manner, and still holds him responsible.
A small tidbit that I remembered! A while back, when looking through ASOIAF related art, I came across the official website of artist Paolo Puggioni. He did the Tourney at Harrenhal piece for The World of Ice and Fire. While identifying the characters depicted, he talked about how GRRM was very particular about this specific art and briefed certain aspects of it to him, giving small descriptors for each character. This is some of what GRRM said:
âWeâve always imagined that the perfect image of the tourney at Harrenhal would kind of let you pick out all these figures in the stands, each with their different reactions when âthe smiles diedâ. Jon Arryn and Robert and Lord Hunter joking a moment before what was happening dawned on them, Ned watching as Rhaegar was about to stop in front of his sister (who must have been seated quite close), mad Aerys glowering in the distance, Elia stiff-backed and trying to act as if nothing was wrong, Jon Connington probably looking vaguely sad (read: jealous), and so on.â
Weâve never actually gotten any indicator of Eliaâs reaction to Rhaegar crowning Lyanna in the text (although we can imagine), so this is the first Iâve seen, as limited as it is. Stiff backed and trying to act if nothing was wrong. Oh, Elia. Giving nothing away, still playing her part and swallowing her humiliation as her husband disgraces her for all to witness. The dates weâve been given tell us she was pregnant with Aegon at the time too. The argument that she might have agreed to this near unprecedented public display of humiliation has always been bizarre and baseless but this says all it needs to. Does this sound like someone who knew what Rhaegar was about to do? Someone relaxed and unfazed as her husband publicly announced his preference for another- in a world where it would ruin her- as sheâs made to watch?
The moment where all the smiles died. Beautiful Elia, second on the left, watching as Rhaegar crowns another. An act so cruel that nobody could believe it was happening yet itâs still made into a romance at her expense, with her being made complicit in her own dishonour and suffering. Elia Martell deserved better.
âFirst row, from the left: Ashara Dayne, Princess Elia Martell, Prince Oberyn Martell, Brandon Stark, Lyanna Stark, Eddard Stark, and (standing) Robert Baratheon.
Second row, from the left: Jon Connington, Prince Lewyn Martell, Lord Hunter, Jon Arryn.â â Paolo Puggioni
Note Eliaâs costume was based on Eva Greenâs Princess Sibylla, from the film Kingdom of Heaven.
So we have official ASOIAF related art work as dictated by GRRM for The World of Ice and Fire. In the art depicting the Tourney at Harrenhal, we get our glimpse at Princess Elia at the head of the box under the Martell banner. Itâs been debated which woman is Elia but I think Iâm certain itâs actually the heavily adorned woman in the middle, with the man who would be Oberyn on one side, and possibly her friend and lady-in-waiting, Ashara Dayne, on the other.
Itâs hard to make out detail (itâs clearer to zoom in yourself on the first picture) but she appears to have very delicate features and big, dark eyes. There was something very familiar about her garb and just her face in general. Am I wrong in thinking the artist drew inspiration from Eva Greenâs Princess Sibylla, from Kingdom of Heaven, for Elia?
Same hooded red and orange cloak (House Martell colours!), pearls around her neck, yellow scarf that doubles up as a veil resting under her chin, what appear to be jewels adorning her forehead and an exquisitely embellished dress on Sibylla that is everything Iâd imagine a Dornish princess wearing.
Even her face seems based on Evaâs. TWOIAF describes Elia as a âdelicate beautyâ as matched here, thereâs the same kohl rimmed eyes and face shape. As a fan of the film, this is something I love and it gives us a little bit more to go on considering the limited information and descriptors we have of Elia in the source material.
As far as inspirations go, Princess Sibylla as Princess Elia Martell? Pretty damn beautiful and wonderfully fitting.
"Maria Perez, styled a Balteira, can be considered the most famous woman of medieval literature, about whom most has been written. Writers, painters and other artists have approached her from different perspectives. Her personality exercises a certain attraction and her figure grew over time until she became shrouded in the aura of legend.
Soldadeiras, it seems, were dancers who lived off their theatrical art and other services, receiving in return the soldada (salary), the noun from which the term soldadeira derives. They accompanied the jongleurs as they travelled from courts to noble houses, acting as companions, assistants and frequently as servants, dancing and singing to the sound of the instrument played by the jongleur.Their presence is proven by regulations that forbade, or limited, their access to court and military circles.Â
There are no explicit references in the cancioneiros to the nature of their craft, although the depictions of them dancing in the company of jongleurs in the miniatures of the Cancioneiro da Ajuda are significant. The most common scene of these shows a woman playing âtarrañolasâ (Galician castanets), singing and dancing with arms held high, accompanied by the jongleur with the sound of the psaltery or the guitar. In the satirical genre close to 43 cantigas are dedicated to the soldadeiras (almost 10 per cent of the dâescarnho poems). Evidence of the close relationship that linked jongleurs, troubadours and soldadeiras in the same sphere of textual production, as well as the relevance of the soldadeiras in the tradition, is that this social group is the most written about in the Galician-Portuguese satirical corpus. Sometimes, soldadeiras remain anonymous; others appear with their names. Those recorded are varied, significant and almost always unidentifiable, able at times to correspond to the same person.
Maria Perez, a Balteira, is the most important soldadeira, both for the number of cantigas dedicated to her by poets and the high profile that she acquired in the texts.Â
The name and surname are certainly common. Lollis made her known in his Romance literary criticism and at the beginning of the twentieth century the Galician humanist MartĂnez Salazar provided a wealth of information on her existence. He identifies her with a certain âdona Maria Perezâ (she does not appear styled as a Balteira) who is recorded in a document belonging to the Monastery of Santa Maria de Sobrado, dated 1257, in which a woman hands over some lands that bind her to that monastery.
Dona Maria Perez therefore, daughter of don Pedro Joham de Guimaran and dona Azenda Pais, ceded a maternal inheritance in exchange for 230 soldos (solidi) and the annual supply of important quantities of provisions for her house. In exchange, the monks promised to bury her in the monastery and to say mass for her. Three pieces of information can be deduced from the document: first, she was of noble birth, a status that would contrast with being a soldadeira; second, she held properties in Armea (a village located in the province of A Coruña); and, last and most importantly, she was preparing to set off on a journey to the Holy Land: âela e cruzada se for na cruzadaâ, the monks had to pay her 200 soldos (solidi), nevertheless 10 soldos (solidi) should be paid by her if she failed to go. The reason for this stipulation is unknown: it could be a penance for not having gone or as a payment for someone else to travel in her stead.
(...)As hard as it is to believe, in spite of the evidence, that both conditions â being born of noble birth and the profession of soldadeira â could co-exist in the same person, it appears that she was a noblewoman with the profession of soldadeira."
Corral DĂaz Esther, "Maria Balteira, a Woman Crusader to Outremer" in: Women and Pilgrimage in Medieval Galicia
