#rhaelya

[forlya]

Lyanna stark

Commission down by hayrj

[karuselii]

Last thought before the last breath

[theotherdragomirgirl]

"Elia's marriage was political, so she wouldn't mind Rhaegar getting with Lyanna."

You fool, it's exactly BECAUSE the marriage was 'political' that Elia would 100% mind it.

A political union is by definition for the benefits of ALL parties involved.

Rhaegar got a pretty fertile wife. He got a woman who was already a born princess in her own right. From her he got a male heir and a female spare in TWO years of marriage, his two heads of the dragon. He got her uncle serving House Targaryen loyally as a Kingsguard until Lewyn died fighting in Rhaegar's war. He got the Dornish army fighting to the death with him at the Trident.

What did Elia/Dorne get in return from this "political marriage"?

They were supposed to get a Dornish woman as Queen Consort -

Instead they found out she was rap*d and split in half and her skull was crushed through her eye sockets.

They were supposed to get a future half Dornish King of the Seven Kingdoms -

Instead, they found out their baby prince was bashed into a pulp against a wall, and then his murderer rap*d his mother with Aegon's blod and brains on him.

They were supposed to one day get the half Dornish princess Rhaenys with a beneficial match that would have her dubbed "The Envy of Westeros" -

Instead, Dorne learned Rhaenys was stabbed half a hundred times to death at the age of three, while she hid under her uncaring father's bed, hoping he would come save her. He didn't. He couldn't even save himself.

Dorne was supposed to get influence at court, increased power. House Martell was supposed to be able to strengthen their power in their region through this dynastic union -

Instead, Dorne got a rap*d and murdered daughter and her murdered children whose corpses were never even returned to them, whose murders, r*pe, and mutilation became a badge of honor on Tywin Lannister's endless list of crimes against humanity.

Tywin The Sexual Sadist got a crown for his psycho daughter. Dorne got told to shut up and suck it up.

Dorne kept it's end of the bargain.

Rhaegar made sure to pay them back with incomparable humiliation on a national stage, by crowning another woman his queen of love and beauty when his pregnant wife was right there, and so was his infant daughter, and all of Westerosi nobility.

Then he again taught them just what their place in his mind was, by running off with his side piece when Elia was post partum, struggling to stay alive.

Rhaegar's no. 1 fanboy, Jon Con, himself told us that the birth of Aegon nearly killed Elia. What perfect timing Rhaegar kept choosing.

Elia kept her end of the bargain.

Rhaegar decided, while using and discarding Elia for all she was worth, till his last breath, repeatedly, that clearly he was above such politics.

Except when he needs Elia to warm his bed and Dornish spears to save his ass, of course.

[lyannaweek2026]

Day 6 | LOVE IS THE BANE OF HONOR, THE DEATH OF DUTY

“We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.”

— comm by @mandhos for lyathewolfmaid1 on X

[thhouseofblack]

Rhaegar and Lyanna spending their morning with their precious baby boy ♡

commissioned from the talented kokofi!

[winterosiee]

“She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.”

A comm by asaisxart 💗

[saessenach]

What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms… or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

Jon Snow - and family that haunts him, because sometimes ghosts make for the best love stories.

[everayy]

i understand being uncomfortable with rhaelya’s age gap but i’ve seen people mention it’d be so easy to just make lyanna a tad older in order for their story to be a proper romance. but i personally think the whole point is that it’s not meant to be easy. the story that’s being told asks for a sacrifice and, beyond lyanna’s life, the price being paid is that of the reader’s comfort. it’s not particularly palatable because it’s not supposed to be. it’d weaken the story if rhaegar wasn’t made less flattering by his relationship with lyanna (not only because of her age, but what it means to the family he left behind, and why he is pursuing someone new in the first place). grrm constantly plays with notions of mortality and how “the person you may hate so much is someone else’s beloved child”, taking that away from such a core event in the story that ties and tells so much and at the same time so little is asking asoiaf to be less authentic. rhaegar (good) x robert (evil) is an objectively less interesting story than two men fighting for their idea of a woman (in truth, just a girl) who doesn’t exist, because neither of them really knows her, and that said strength struggle ultimately tears her apart. so we meet both the robert who means the world to ned and the one who raped cersei. we meet both the rhaegar who wants to save the realm from aerys’ reign and the one who sacrificed elia’s safety—for an affair with a much younger girl (which is really just abuse).