Lyanna & Rhaegar "Master Post"
*Will be updated probably many times*
Yes, this is narratively/IN-WORLD a love story and a love pairing. This post gives the reasons why it is meant to be so, and does so from a Watsonian vs a Doylist approach.
A List of Different Posts
ozymalek/Phoenix Ashes's Breakdown of How the story of Rhaegar and Lyanna is MEANT to be a Love Story, with Evidence from Text
A Claim that they were similar to Aemond and Alys under the War Prize = R*pe Context
My Reblog of a Thread: The Actual Timeline of Rhaegar, Lyanna, Aerys, etc to show how Aerys and not Rhaegar is Responsible for Elia's being in KL; Elia's Possible Reactions to Lyanna and Rhaegar; Political Marriage; The Dornish's Relationship w/the rest of Westeros
la-pheacienne's Words abt how fallacious it is to expect war from Rhaegar's actions alone....Aerys caused the war, not Rhaegar; The Queen of Love and Beuaty; "Ethical Authenticity" when Rhaegar Ran Off w/Lyanna // MY REBLOG OF IT -- this post
la-pheacienne's Response to my question: "What do you think about Rhaegar and Lyanna?"
Consummation & Age of Majority in Westeros
An ask to ladymorgana91: "Do you think that Lyanna and Rhaegar were seriously in love?" -> ORIG // MY REBLOG
Cersei vs Elia & Fandom's Love for the Dead Ladies
More Reiterations of Certain Textual and Contextual Evidence for it Being a Romance Pair
An ask about how Game of Thrones Muddled People's View of Legitimization vs Acknowledgement, Polygamy, and Jon Snow being Rhaegar's Heir or Named "Aegon"
Elia is not PoC, bc the Dornish are not "PoC" but "spicy whites" even with there being discrimination against Dornish people..."white" people can be racist/ethnically dehumanizing against certain other "white" people; but even with all that, Rhaegar the man himself has never displayed any disfavor towards Elia purely or partly from her being Dornish just because Aerys did...we must remember that these two (Aerys and Rhaegar) had a very strained relationship, possibly and likely abusive, so it's very unlikely that Rhaegar shared his father's complete disregard for others in this way, esp when all his description form both not-so-great to pretty moral characters have thus far described Rhaegar as melancholy do-gooder
an ask to dragonsfromthemoon: "It says a lot about the hypocrisy of fandom when they hate Rhaegar for "abandoning" his wife and kids to fight in war but don't hate Ned for doing the same to his pregnant bride Catelyn. Rhaegar was an able-bodied prince who knew how to fight and ride a horse; to not fight would have branded him a coward. The reason Jaime and the other Kingsguard stayed behind is because they are sworn to protect the royal family which is why Rhaegar tasked them to protect Lyanna and Elia." // MY REBLOG
One can argue that there is a "power imbalance" for every single relationship or relationship-to-be in this world, because women almost never have the same authorities or access to resources that a man automatically can inherit and use to exert authority over women...that's how feudal-monarchial hierarchies work. Rhaegar and Lyanna's age difference reflects a common Westerosi phenomenon that comes form this particular real-world and Westerosi phenomenon. Dany's relationship to Irri doesn't have an age difference nor a gender inequality factor, but many have also cited how Dany's position over Irri (both are former sex slaves but Dany is Irri's queen and Irri is Dany's handmaid) has troubling possible issues for Irri anyway....but this relationship is very clearly written to be 100% consensual, and just bc Irri/people might not be exactly in love or attracted to Dany or other people, doesn't mean she can't consent to sex (as many asexuals are not attracted to their partners but they can def consent).
Obviously, when we are trying to say what actually happens in the story (not from a writer's perspective, but literally what are the characters-as-if-Westeros-were-real), we need to look at the books/the "text" with some degree of remove from out own world to understand what the characters are doing and why they do it. Our own expectations of social context is not going to inform the entire text...bc this is not a text/work/series set in the modern era, thus that characters are not going to have lived under your modern context for them to really think X is this and that. That's not to say predators don't exist in Westeros & Planetos; GRRM gives very clear examples (Robert, Craster, Roose Bolton, Walder Frey, those slave masters who have child slaves, etc.). It's to say do not rush to label some characters as a very specific sort of predator when some textual details tell us both directly and indirectly that some situations show they functionally cannot.
All in all, yes GRRM frequently includes large age differences in romantic relationships as he wrote during a time where he and many others weren't really thinking about how such a power imbalance often spells trouble for the much younger (esp teenaged) partner, esp when its older boy/man and younger woman/girl...
"I don't think GRRM should have presented a 16 yr old and 22-24 year old as a tragic love story, esp when it resulted in her being physically separated from her family & dying from childbirth at such a young age."
"Rhaegar groomed, raped, & imprisoned her in a tower to force her to have his child or just because he's a pedophile and left her to die. He didn't understand true responsibility and duty. And he hated his wife and kids.
because the latter says that this actually happens in the actual narrative. The first one says GRRM PRESENTS a story that:
they think could have detrimental effects on some readers' perception of real-life relationships
or/and it makes them too uncomfortable with the very notion of such a age difference for what they know would be a power imbalance out of context/the story (esp when people frequently ignore context, which leads to misunderstandings to misunderstand)
Both readings still don't really absorb or consider the textual and ASoIaF/Westerosi social contexts both out and in the specific events before Robert's Rebellion, but they still aren't the same bc the second one is claiming that it is what is actually happening in-world.
What specific details prevent LyannaxRhaegar from being straight up grooming/rape? Because:
Lyanna clearly did not want to marry Robert; she was very likely the Knight of the Laughing Tree, who Aerys was looking for to likely kill; Rhaegar is very much her type, considering how she had a specific outlook on justice compatible with Rhaegar's goal towards refashioning Westeros from its destructive historical actions, including in the hands of his own family -- she more than likely (read "definitely") ran away with Rhaegar
we know intimately abt how power imbalances where there's a teen involved has disastrous effects we take measures against it with laws preventing what we've constructed are "teens" marrying non-teen adults (bc the concept of "teen" didn't exist until very recently in human history) and these people do not have such a concept to even be held accountable for staying away from 16 year olds, who were considered adults [however, even for them and I mean Westeros not real history, certain age differences are not favorable or good]; this is a fantasy series set in a pseudo-medieval feudalistic society whose characters cannot exist in their own world without the author's intent...they literally do not exist in our world]
You can dislike some of the characters & GRRM, but to misinterpret them as searching for teens for the mere sake of searching for teens in the way real pedos and groomers do and thus make Rhaegar the same as someone like Craster is ridiculous. The story is about particular nuances of feudalistic duty vs romantic/platonic/altruistic/self love.
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