It’s tragic, in a way, he marched off to lead an army, and all he left Rhaenys was a bed as a shield
That detail was brutal and lowk the main reason why I have zero sympathy for him. Rhaenys was so small she probably didn’t even understand (or wasn’t told) he was already dead and even after months of not seeing him her first instinct was to run to her father, who was not there, and search desperately until she finally gave up and just curled under his bed. The fact that she fled to where she thought he MIGHT be rather than where her mother absolutely was communicates a lot like hey your little daughter loved you more than anyone and you left her. She was murdered in your room and your prophecy books are stained with her blood. Did you think of her when your vision was dimming in that field? She thought of you
i promise im asking this in total sincerity. what do you picture having happened after the tourney at harrenhal, vis a vis rhaegar & lyanna? do you picture it as him taking her kicking and screaming, coercing her with the implied threat of the kingsguard with him, or in the convicted throes of targaryen prophecy delusion, or something else entirely?
Okay since you pinky promised this isn’t an invitation to stupid shipping discourse I do have a needlessly long winded answer to this: I think when gurm came up with this in 1991 or whatever he most likely intended for Lyanna to have gone willingly, having been charmed by a willowy emo doing a harp solo at a party (and clearly wanting to get away from Robert). We even get the set up with having one of her only canon lines be complaining about how Robert will be unfaithful if she marries him and she thinks it’s dishonorable only to accidentally wind up a married man’s mistress a few months later - completely ironic and doing a single impulsive thing that winds up shattering all her values, George loves that shit. It makes sense. She’s not the responsible party here, Rhaegar was a grown man with a wife, two kids, and a coup he was supposed to be planning.
Now do I believe she probably developed a little crush on the prince while at the tourney? Sure. She probably even doubled down on it when her family no doubt grilled her about just why the fuck a grown man was giving that crown to her instead of his wife (maybe offended at the implication that she did something salacious, he might have told her he gave her the wreath for her performance as the knight of the laughing tree since she couldn’t get another prize for her bravery and surely he wasn’t trying to shame his wife). Where the whole “oooooh it was a love story” shit falls apart for me is just logistically let’s say Lyanna was offered a chance to run off with him and took it…..okay now what lol?
This kid thinks she’s being swept off on an adventure or something but the logistics would have crashed down on her head pretty much immediately. Lya disappeared on the way to Brandon’s wedding so she would have been traveling with a full guard, who Rhaegar would have had to straight up murder on the spot to get her away. Is she going to be okay with that? Okay let’s say they were maimed just enough to not give chase, is she okay with that? Alright now she’s free from a shitty betrothal except her brother came to get her and now he’s imprisoned. Does she not feel guilty? If she asked to try to clarify the situation was she allowed to? Okay now her father was summoned to explain himself to Aerys, in the literal weeks it would have taken for Rickard to arrive was she just being placated that her father would sort it out? When Rhaegar’s father kills her father and brother gruesomely for trying to “rescue” her would that not make her hate herself? She’s meant to be a lot like Arya so better yet would that not make her loathe Rhaegar himself for not stopping it or hell for being related to him? Aerys then demanded Ned’s head - NOW would she be kicking and screaming to get away and explain herself to prevent a second brother’s death? For all she knows Aerys wants to kill baby Benjen and raze winterfell too.
Anywhere from a few days to a few weeks into this it would have also occurred to her to ask just what the fuck is Rhaegar’s plan exactly, maybe she wasn’t angry about being kept as a mistress because he did secretly marry her in the woods but what was he telling her, that she’d go back to dragonstone and Elia would just think that was fun and cute and they’d be sister wives? He was hiding her in Dorne, the issue would have come up. War breaks out and now everyone she grew up with, from Ned (and his jackass friend) to the old winter wolves, cool Lady Mormont who she used to see at harvest feasts, to the squire boys she used to play-wrestle with are all throwing themselves at the sword to try to “rescue” her, was she horrified yet? Was the trying to leave yet? Did she try to rip fistfuls of Rhaegar’s hair out yet? If they were actually legally married surely Rhaegar could just tell everyone that (unless he didn’t actually have the authority to take a second wife or annul a marriage with two healthy living children including a son, in which case he intentionally deceived her) so why won’t he tell them? Why can’t she tell them? Why can’t she leave? Then Rhaegar started leaving for long periods of time - maybe to visit his wife and kids, maybe to go murder the man at winterfell that taught her how to ride a horse. She doesn’t know. Then she discovers she’s pregnant and her already restricted movements are even more restricted. I seriously think being told “I need you as a womb to carry my third head of the dragon so you can’t go anywhere” would have gone over very poorly. Did she even want to be pregnant in the middle of all of this? Did she ask for moon tea? By the end of it the Kingsguard supposedly there to protect her were trying to murder her brother while she screamed for him inside - they were clearly not following any of her wishes, which makes them seem like jailers not protectors.
Even putting all that aside, wrt reasons for the war: do we honestly think every house who joined the war effort gave two shits about some little girl they likely never met? She may have been used as a rallying cry but realistically most of them except Ned and Robert just wanted to depose Aerys or got an alliance out of this — and even in the north and the stormlands most houses would have had more of a problem with Aerys demanding their liege lord’s head and publicly murdering the head of a great house (along with all of Brandon’s friends and their fathers) than the prince despoiling Lyanna
Mind you, this is assuming Rhaegar told her anything. For all we know he kept her completely isolated from any of this information until it was far too late, either out of arrogance, or a patronizing attempt to protect her feelings, or out of panic because of how severely he fucked up. Its pretty safe to assume the moment she found out she was being lied to she’d be incredibly angry. In addition, all the logistics that would have blindsided Lyanna as an honestly very sheltered young girl would not have been shocking to Rhaegar. He was an adult father of two and heir apparent, he knew goddamn well what the ramifications for his actions might be, especially as someone who was already planning to call a secret council to depose his insane father. Maybe he thought everything would work out because it was destiny but at some point he started intentionally holding Lyanna hostage, even if she wasn’t one at the start, and even if he didn’t initially intend to hurt her he’s entirely responsible for her death.
Rhaegar was supposed to be pretty intelligent so there’s no way he honestly thought he could either annul his marriage or take a second wife without causing a huge scandal and maybe a civil war - the last guy to take a second wife is Maegor the Cruel, not a guy you want to be associated with when you’re trying to convince people you’d be a better ruler than your dad who loves public torture. Putting aside a dornish princess and two perfectly healthy dornish children would have caused huge offense in Dorne - it would have been Oberyn riding up to kings landing and demanding he come out and fight him, and keep in mind the Targs had trouble controlling Dorne WITH dragons.
With all this in mind I think reducing the issue or Robert’s rebellion to “well what if they reaaaally liked each other” is both reductive and pointless. A war (or at the very least a massacre) had been brewing for years with or without Rhaegar being either dumb or consumed by prophecy, he just provided a fuse. The whole Robert’s Rebellion was based on a lie angle is simplifying what was at this point a continental problem. It’s about as ridiculous as Cersei claiming Elia could have somehow prevented the whole thing by not being flat chested, though of course it makes for a better salacious story than listing out the 500 political grievances that led to the war
Under no circumstances do you have to hand it to Rhaegar Targaryen. however. Clapping the traumatized 17 yr old nepo intern knight you are leaving as sole protector of your wife and kids against your certifiably insane father the king in the middle of a civil war you caused that you are losing on the shoulder and going “well sport, i’m gonna be honest. I’m starting to get the feeling that some of this…is bad. and I prob should’ve changed things a while ago but I forgot to get around to it (oopsie daisy) anyway we’ll fix it when I get back” has got to be one of the funniest things to say before immediately dying in said civil war and leaving said intern with the dilemma of regicide or atomization-by-wildfire
At the end of this day this is all that matters. So many people believe that if you failed you shouldn’t have tried at all. Thats just not true. It’s better to do something, and take a risk for the better than do nothing. You make think you’ve made no change, but a spark is enough.
Not only does Ormund get one hundred billion points from me for glazing MY glup shitto #myglupshitto Meria Martell (and Dorne in general) on my screen but him being racist about valyrians but pointedly not against the dornish then immediately hitting the Logan Roy you’re my number one boy pose on Daeron is the funniest possible direction to take this. They wrote this scene for me specifically holy shit
I actually had to pause and stand up you have no idea. I have a bizarrely specific dislike of closeups of hands in medieval/fantasy stuff and their nails are always filthy What do you MEAN a medieval man just pointedly washed his hands then looked directly into the camera and recited the escapades of my favorite extremely niche in-universe historical figure that no one else gives a shit about Meria Martell, I feel like Alys Rivers is drugging ME
baratheonpilled
prguitarman
areudirty
blakekathryn
stormborns
origamiaround
