"Lyanna criticizes Robert for Cheating but she runs away with a married man! She's a whore and a hypocrite-"
Is such a misunderstanding not only of lyanna's character but of Ned's entire Arc in aGoT. And why that certain Lyanna flashback is so important to his arc
Yes, many Lyanna mentions in Ned's point are R+L=J evidence but more than that, Ned's big emotional Arc In the first book is becoming Disillusioned by Robert and the new Regime.
Every Ned chapter is basically one step in him realizing that Lyanna was RIGHT about Robert and that his friend is a pos and a bad king.
1- the book is filled with example after example of Robert being an ass king. He's unwilling to actually govern the realm unless it's related to fighting wars, he explicitly chooses Ned as a hand so he can put his responsibilities on Ned so he can whore and drink. He puts the realm in debt, he surrounds himself with Lannisters and gives them power when he should know that they're two timing and not trustworthy, he constantly ignores Ned's advices and literally refuses to listen to him when Ned is trying to tell him of the incest plot etc
2- The deaths of Elia and her children and how it haunts Ned's every chapter how it's the one blot on Ned and Robert's friendship. Just as Robert once excused the deaths of Rhaegar's family, he orders Daenerys' assassination showing that he not only has not changed in excusing the deaths of innocents, he's actively become WORSE, and now is an active participant in the atrocities. it reinforces again and again that Lyanna and Ned are right in fearing Robert when it comes to Jon's life. Sansa's pleading for lady's life(who Robert condemns to death even though he knows that she's innocent) is directly compared to Lyanna pleading for Jon's life. Furthermore, Ned also calls out Robert for his cowardice in that he's not even willing to kill lady himself, just as he calls Robert a coward as he sends Assassins after Danny instead of killing her himself. In fact it is the reason why Ned dooms himself by telling Cersi his plans because he KNOWWS that Robert will kill Cersi's innocent children. It is CRUCIAL that Ned's flashback with Lyanna happens after their Argument about Daenerys.
After quitting his position as hand, Ned goes to a brothel with little finger and finds one of Ned's bastards, Barra. We're constantly reminded of the fact that it's Raining.
"The rain had driven everyone under their roofs. It beat down on Ned’s head, warm as blood and relentless as old guilts. Fat drops of water ran down his face."
Now what is causing Ned to feel guilty I wonder? 🤔
“Robert will never keep to one bed,” Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm’s End. “I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale.” Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. “Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.”
The girl had been so young Ned had not dared to ask her age. No doubt she’d been a virgin; the better brothels could always find a virgin, if the purse was fat enough. She had light red hair and a powdering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and when she slipped free a breast to give her nipple to the babe, he saw that her bosom was freckled as well. “I named her Barra,” she said as the child nursed. “She looks so like him, does she not, milord? She has his nose, and his hair …”
“She does.” Eddard Stark had touched the baby’s fine, dark hair. It flowed through his fingers like black silk. Robert’s firstborn had had the same fine hair, he seemed to recall.
“Tell him that when you see him, milord, as it … as it please you. Tell him how beautiful she is.”
“I will,” Ned had promised her. That was his curse. Robert would swear undying love and forget them before evenfall, but Ned Stark kept his vows. He thought of the promises he’d made Lyanna as she lay dying, and the price he’d paid to keep them.
“And tell him I’ve not been with no one else. I swear it, milord, by the old gods and new. Chataya said I could have half a year, for the baby, and for hoping he’d come back. So you’ll tell him I’m waiting, won’t you? I don’t want no jewels or nothing, just him. He was always good to me, truly.”
Good to you, Ned thought hollowly. “I will tell him, child, and I promise you, Barra shall not go wanting.”
She had smiled then, a smile so tremulous and sweet that it cut the heart out of him. Riding through the rainy night, Ned saw Jon Snow’s face in front of him, so like a younger version of his own. If the gods frowned so on bastards, he thought dully, why did they fill men with such lusts? “Lord Baelish, what do you know of Robert’s bastards?”
“Well, he has more than you, for a start.”
Littlefinger shrugged. Rivulets of moisture twisted down the back of his cloak. “Does it matter? If you bed enough women, some will give you presents, and His Grace has never been shy on that count. I know he’s acknowledged that boy at Storm’s End, the one he fathered the night Lord Stannis wed. He could hardly do otherwise. The mother was a Florent, niece to the Lady Selyse, one of her bedmaids. Renly says that Robert carried the girl upstairs during the feast, and broke in the wedding bed while Stannis and his bride were still dancing. Lord Stannis seemed to think that was a blot on the honor of his wife’s House, so when the boy was born, he shipped him off to Renly.” He gave Ned a sideways glance. “I’ve also heard whispers that Robert got a pair of twins on a serving wench at Casterly Rock, three years ago when he went west for Lord Tywin’s tourney. Cersei had the babes killed, and sold the mother to a passing slaver. Too much an affront to Lannister pride, that close to home.”
Ned Stark grimaced. Ugly tales like that were told of every great lord in the realm. He could believe it of Cersei Lannister readily enough … but would the king stand by and let it happen? The Robert he had known would not have, but the Robert he had known had never been so practiced at shutting his eyes to things he did not wish to see. “Why would Jon Arryn take a sudden interest in the king’s baseborn children?”
The short man gave a sodden shrug. “He was the King’s Hand. Doubtless Robert asked him to see that they were provided for.”
Ned was soaked through to the bone, and his soul had grown cold. “It had to be more than that, or why kill him?”
Littlefinger shook the rain from his hair and laughed. “Now I see. Lord Arryn learned that His Grace had filled the bellies of some whores and fishwives, and for that he had to be silenced. Small wonder. Allow a man like that to live, and next he’s like to blurt out that the sun rises in the east.”
There was no answer Ned Stark could give to that but a frown. For the first time in years, he found himself remembering Rhaegar Targaryen. He wondered if Rhaegar had frequented brothels; somehow he thought not.
The text literally lays is out for everyone to see. Roberts lustful nature has been highlighted since the very first chapter he's appeared. But now after 16 years Ned finally(regretfully) realizes what Lyanna was telling him. Why she chose Rhaegar who unlike Robert, did not frequent brothels.
The contrast between Robert and Rhaegar is actually really important because Robert's main targets are always sex workers whom he has power over, whom he can discard without any consequences. It's not a coincidence that the only bastard that he's acknowledged is the son of a noble woman. In this chapter Ned compares Robert not only with Rhaegar but also with himself. Robert lovebombs women to sleep with them and then discards them when he's gotten bored of them. In fact Ned can't even deny that Robert would ignore Cersi murdering his children and selling his lover to slavery. That's how low Robert has fallen in Ned's eyes.
Lyanna tries to tell Ned that Robert is a whoremonger, a lustful man and Ned tries to disregard her by telling her that Robert will be loyal to her after marriage because he "loves" her(and Ned later acknowledges that this Robert only saw Lyanna's beauty but not her nature) except Lyanna is RIGHT. Robert literally proves her right in the rebellion when he(while he believes that lyanna is being raped "hundreds of times") hides in a brothel in old town and sleeps with every sex worker there and fathers Bella. This man cannot keep it in his pants while claiming to fight for his "beloved" Lyanna. In this chapter Ned finally realizes what his young sister saw while he was too blind to realize. But there's nothing he can do now. Rhaegar and Lyanna are dead. Ned had to ruin his own honor to protect for a promise and he's been haunted by his sisters death and Jon's upbringing as a bastard in westros for 16 years.
Robert claims to love Lyanna while he sleeps around and fathers Bastards and then he abaondns both mother and child vs Rhaegar loves lyanna and takes her to a tower and assgins three members of the kingsguard(one of them being his oldest friend) to protect her.
It's not about Rhaegar or Robert cheating. It's about their integrities and nature. It's about who is truthful about their love. Rhaegar was married to Elia. An arranged marriage where as far as we know, he never claimed to be in love with her. He was fond of her.
Rhaegar being loyal to the women he married for duty until he met someone he actually loved and whom he stuck by and tired to protect(while also going back to fight and protect his wife and kids no I do not buy the notion that he abandoned them to die)is NOT the same as Robert claiming to love Lyanna and then fucking everything that moves.