#tower of joy

[karuselii]

All of them in two pages 💙❤️

[insufferablelesbian]

do y'all ever think about how Lyanna was wild, and all she wanted was to be both free and loved, and ended up dying alone, pregnant, a helpless girl held captive in a tower? how for one shining moment, she thought rhaegar meant she could have what she wanted? how betrayed she must have felt to learn he was no different to any other man in westeros? from the knight of the laughing tree, proud and brave and fierce and in love with the songs, to a shadow of herself fading into death under the watch of living legends who must have disappointed her so terribly

[jedimaesteryoda]

. . the blood of the dragon gathered in one

I just realized with the entire Targaryen house gathered at Summerhall, that would mean the presence of all of the Kingsguard. Their job is to guard the royal family, and so if all of House Targaryen were gathered at Summerhall, that means all seven Kingsguard would have been there as well including one in particular: Gerold Hightower.

Gerold would have witnessed his old Lord Commander Ser Duncan the Tall putting everything on the line to save newborn prince Rhaegar in spite of the odds including defying his own king. Where would Gerold have been in that situation? Would he have sided with his king, his Lord Commander or stayed neutral not knowing what to do? Would he have had regrets?

By the end of his story, Gerold would now find himself the old Lord Commander at the tower of joy. It adds another layer of meaning to his actions as he ends up channeling the spirit of his predecessor Dunk in giving his life to defend a newborn prince. The boy happened to be son to the same one Dunk had saved.

Dunk's ghost may have been at the tower of joy.

[amoratearte]

the moon 🌙 and the night sky 🌌

Ashara shows Lyanna how strongly her niece kicks.

[briius]

people tend to forget jon when they discuss tower of joy and why certain characters acted in the way they did. in the end, it's about jon and his backstory. and even though you can argue about other characters, it still revolves around jon and people's feelings about him (this post is obviously if you believe in r+l=j) because I see sometimes people villainize rhaegar (although he has a lot of rightful criticism) about him having lyanna guarded by the kingsguard without really thinking of why. in the end lyanna couldn't do much because she was pregnant, even if she regretted going with rhaegar or if she still was in love with him. if she returned to the rebels she could be safe because they would think she was kidnapped (no matter what actually happened) and obviously feel bad for her, but her child would not be safe and would most likely be harmed or killed. and she obviously did care for jon no matter what you think her thoughts about rhaegar were in the end.

He could still hear her at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave his word, the fear had gone out of his sister's eyes.

AGOT Eddard I she was obviously worried about jon’s well being and was genuinely scared for his future until ned promised her. i think people tend to forget lyanna’s love for him when they discuss tower of joy. in the end it’s not her feelings for rhaegar or hatred for robert making her stay there, it’s her love for her son, because her staying is the only way to ensure his safety. these thoughts are reinforced when the sack of kingslanding happens. 

He remembered Rhaegar's infant son, the red ruin of his skull, and the way the king had turned away, as he had turned away in Darry's audience hall not so long ago. He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once.

AGOT Eddard IV first of all, sansa is pleading for lady’s life in this scene because she loves lady, and ned is comparing it to lyanna and how she pleaded the same for something before. it’s obviously a parallel for lyanna pleading for jon’s life and her care for him. second of all, the kingsguard had no idea if ned and co. would harm baby jon because of what happened with rhaegar's other children. all they knew was that ned and robert were close friends, and they had no knowledge of what Ned was like as a person or what his intentions were. because the kingsguard didn't try to stop ned from seeing lyanna, they tried to stop him from seeing jon and if he wasn't born we don't know how the kingsguard would have acted the same with ned and co. ned even explains why the kingsguard is there in his fever dream and why it revolves around jon.

"Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him." "Ser Willem is a good man and true," said Ser Oswell. "But not of the Kingsguard," Ser Gerold pointed out. "The Kingsguard does not flee." "Then or now," said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.

AGOT Eddard X in the end, the kingsguard sees this as their duty. they wouldn't be there if it wasn't for jon because they saw protecting him as their duty. and this conversation also reinforces why lyanna has to protect him and why he isn't safe, because people will see him as a danger to the throne and the new dynasty. what i'm trying to say is that jon is very central to the tower and joy and the characters' actions around it, and if you ignore that you'll misunderstand why they act the way they do. however, i do think it's incredibly sad that lyanna, who longed to be free, was trapped at the end of her life. especially because she was trapped by the same thing she tried to escape from. lyanna and her life reminds me of the scene in gilmore girls when lane says “it was such a small window, a peephole really. it was the briefest of windows. i barely got to do it, i barely got the chance to be a person”. when talking about her freedom and life.

[jeyneofpoole]

leda 1, 2, 3

[wrath-of-achilleus]

Hey! Saw your post about R/L and your thoughts on if they were in love or was it just for the prophecy and it got me thinking, I used to be a firm believer it was just about the prophecy, but I now obviously think they did have romantic feelings for one another. What I’m not sure about and can’t seem to make my mind up about, is if it was like a “love at first sight, true love” kind of romance, or was it more of a they kind of have a crush on one another but don’t really pursue it, and then because of the prophecy (maybe Rhaegar even tells Lyanna, because he thinks she is the Ice, about the prophecy?) and they then obviously pursue their relationship? Like you said maybe the prophecy gave Rhaegar a sort of “out” to fully pursue Lyanna?

I guess my thought is just, I don’t know if they were like “in love in love” you know? I just can’t figure out how they would have gotten the time to have fallen in this such deep love (I know they spent time at the TOJ but I mean more so before they left together). A part of me sometimes still wonders if he was able to truly “love” anyone at all? He never really had a good example of romance or love in his life, and then his “being born in grief” being carried throughout his life and how he’s constantly described as “melancholic”? Sorry for rambling, Rhaegar is just such a complicated, interesting character!

Would love to hear your thoughts!!

Thank you sm for this very interesting question! I'm glad you liked my R/L post :) Fair warning, this answer is going to be pretty rambly (as always), because I really have no idea what to think either.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the love at first sight trope. So I would like for it to have started out as a crush/passing affection stemming from deep admiration and respect for one another. I think they were definitely meant to be kindred spirits — Lyanna tearing up at Rhaegar's song maybe implies that she felt some sort of understanding for and by him in that moment. But for it to blossom into straight-up 'true love' over the course of the war seems unrealistic to me. Surely, Lyanna must have been deeply grieving Rickard and Brandon. And even Rhaegar, to me, doesn't seem like the kind of guy who can just bury his head in the sand as the realm tears itself apart.

But those are just my opinions based on the assumption that these characters act like humans. But they aren't humans. We're not going to get very far if we try to psychoanalyse them. They are characters with specific roles in the narrative. So let's look at what we can glean from the text itself. What exactly are their roles in the narrative — individually and as a couple?

GRRM loves subverting tropes in ASOIAF, we've established that. And something as uncomplicated as 'love at first sight/true love' doesn't really have any place in the ASOIAF universe as we know it.

But how well do Rhaegar and Lyanna fit into the ASOIAF universe?

Here's the thing, the narrative is haunted by their deaths. The fact that they don't exist in the same time and space, i.e. the same universe, as the main characters is something that the text is absolutely preoccupied with. Rhaegar, especially, is seen as representative of an impossible ideal. His death was a tragedy because his living would have fixed everything (at least, thematically). The perfect prince, better than his father, intelligent, strong, kind, aware of the narrative, etc. He had all the barebone elements of the first half of The Hero's Journey: Call to Adventure ("it seems I must be a warrior"), Temptation (Lyanna at Harrenhal, ToJ), Atonement/Abyss (death at the Trident). Except, he doesn't have an Apotheosis or a Return. His story stops abruptly. He dies and he doesn't come back. Funnily enough, Lyanna also has the exact same elements of The Hero's Journey. Call to Adventure (Knight of the Laughing Tree), Temptation (Queen of Love and Beauty, ToJ), Abyss (death at ToJ), but even her story ends abruptly. She dies in childbirth, and that's the end of it. Her son is raised as a bastard without knowing his true identity.

So individually, the subversion of the typical fantasy trope for both Rhaegar and Lyanna is is very simply, that none of it mattered. They didn't get their happy ending. They didn't survive. They died, and the story started after their deaths. This is why their death is foundational to the text. Because it tells us that this is a story in which the hero doesn't always win.

So if we just look at their individual characters, it makes sense for them to have been in 'true love', because in order to subvert a trope you do have to follow it to some extent. And the 'true love' would fall into the Temptation aspect of both their Hero's Journeys. (With this interpretation, we'd have to look as Rhaegar's prophecy justification as him being led astray by his own emotions. Lyanna too, if she knew about the prophecy. Though I don't think it matters in the end whether Lyanna knew or not. She already had a justification for running off with Rhaegar, and it was an escape from her betrothal to Robert).

Another aspect of their individual characters that we can consider is that they're both Romantic heroes. The Romantic Hero is someone who rejects the conventions of society. This can be seen in the gender subversion of both Rhaegar and Lyanna. Rhaegar preferred his harp to a lance; Lyanna would have carried a sword if her father had allowed it. The Romantic Hero is also seen as antithetical to domesticity. This is why so many well-known Romantic Heroes end up leading their love interest to their doom (Frankenstein and Elizabeth, Faust and Gretchen). We see this in how Rhaegar and Lyanna's affair destroys Rhaegar's marriage AND Lyanna's betrothal, both textbook examples of Westerosi domesticity. It also results in the birth of a bastard (and we all know how Westeros feels about those). Interestingly, Jon takes after both his parents in this aspect. He, too, is the Romantic (specifically, the Byronic) Hero, as said by GRRM himself.

As you said, Rhaegar is someone described as intensely melancholic and shadowed by grief. Yet, he is the one who names the Tower of Joy. Something that characterises Romantic Heroes is their intensity of emotion. Keeping that in mind, I think it's entirely possible that he fell quickly and hard in love, and Lyanna did too. A destructive love that led to their doom, and to the doom of Elia.

While looking at them as Romantic Heroes, there's also another dimension to consider — the relationship itself.

So, if we look at their relationship, it follows the forbidden love trope to a tee. It's Romeo and Juliet, with Robert as Lyanna's Paris. It's Guinevere and Lancelot, with Elia as Rhaegar's Arthur (Sidenote, but the gender subversion in their story is so incredibly interesting to me. They are both the Romantic hero AND the Romantic heroine). And for the forbidden love trope, a tragic ending for the lovers is essential.

Now if we take that into account, we have to look at Rhaegar and Lyanna's story as serving the same purpose as Aemon the Dragonknight and Naerys, or Florian the Fool and Jonquil. It's meant to be hopelessly idealistic. An impossible love. So impossible that it got them killed. Something fit for the songs, but has no place in the reality of the ASOIAF universe.

(Sidenote: I'm not going to lie to you, when I first started writing out this answer, I had no idea what conclusion I would end up with. So thank you for coming on this journey with me. Please let me know if this makes sense.)

In conclusion, though it doesn't actually make sense realistically or psychologically for Rhaegar and Lyanna to be in 'true love' or to have fallen in love at first sight at Harrenhal, and if they were a story unfolding in real time in the ASOIAF books they probably would not have fallen in love at first sight (even if they did end up developing into true love it would have been incredibly problematised and complicated), they are probably intended to be read as a 'love at first sight, true love' romance on account of them existing slightly outside the narrative.

[morgen-fay]

“Whoever Jon’s mother had been, Ned must have loved her fiercely, for nothing Catelyn said would persuade him to send the boy away.”

- A Game Of Thrones