thinking about narrative injustice this evening. and asides from being shallow and misogynistic, i do think the way a certain subset of fandom (on both sides) is determined to position lyanna against elia / elia against lyanna both does a disservice to lyanna's treatment in rebellion mythos and also undermines the tragedy of elia's abandonment. in canon, westeros does not imagine these two as competing love interests for rhaegar's affection. to set them up in this paradigm is to centre rhaegar as a romantic interest, when in reality we know next to nothing of what elia and lyanna thought of each other or if they even interacted, and certainly not whether they competed for one man.
what we do know is that there is a romantic rivalry in the rebellion - centred around lyanna. that focus, however, is not one that does her justice, but instead mythologises lyanna as either a hopeless romantic in a song or a tragic stolen maiden, and in doing so loses sight of the real girl. robert and rhaegar famously and viciously fight as these mythologies crash, with robert repeatedly visiting this memory, that endures even if his understanding of lyanna and the war is warped by nostalgia and desire for an imagined woman who never even existed.
contrast this with elia. if we look at how she's discussed by oberyn and barristan and others, elia is not competing with lyanna, but rather she's an andromache-like figure of fidelity, who does the best she can and behaves in the way an ideal woman, mother & wife should - she is dutiful, kind, sweet, good natured, loyal, etc. - and is diminished for her ill health, poor fertility, and her dornishness, characteristics that are beyond her control. she does everything right she can do, and it's not enough, and she's not just put aside, but remains an effective hostage under aerys and is brutally raped and murdered by the lannisters in a game of sexual humiliation chess between aerys and tywin, as a pawn who could be sacrificed and not a princess (showing how fragile, really, these class labels are as defences against misogynistic brutality). to add further salt to the wound, in popular narratives in the rebellion, compared to the robert-lyanna-rhaegar romantic rivalry that dominates the songs, elia is an afterthought. that is an injustice that oberyn seeks to dispute when he shouts her name - it's not about elia being the most beautiful, most worthy wife of rhaegar but rather it's about elia being remembered for who she was and to ensure she is not forgotten. narratively she's absent -- and indeed, the inclusion of dornish characters and dorne as a plot seeks to rectify that exclusion and deliberate forgetting.
to act like rhaegar is in the centre of this all instead of lyanna is not only centring a man as a desirable partner but actually diminishes a lot of the ways lyanna and elia have been wounded narratively in popular consciousness - with lyanna miscast and misrepresented, and elia simply not remembered at all.
gamechangershow
theartofmadeline
kianamaiart
gummygunk
