Who did lyanna stark really love?

[markg171]

Well that Lyanna and Rhaegar were in love is speculation, but educated speculation so to say. We don't know for sure yet. Only that she was disdainful of her engagement of Robert, even though she understood it was her duty.

Lyanna was never disdainful of her engagement to Robert. We simply have one instance of a 12-13 year old Lyanna saying Robert wouldn't be able to stay faithful, on the night that it was announced that they were engaged when she had never even met the guy. They were then betrothed for the next 3-4 years and we hear nothing about how Lyanna felt about the engagement during this time once she got to know Robert.

So no, we don't know that she was disdainful of her engagement to Robert. I hear stuff like that a lot around here, but it's completely unfounded. 1 sentence before you ever meet someone, doesn't prove anything. Especially when there's 3-4 years we know nothing about.

The whole "kidnap and rape" story does seem to be revisionist history by Robert among others. Ned definitely never contributed to that.

Ned is the one who told Robert that she died. And Robert directly relates her death and how she died to actions from Rhaegar. So Ned did contribute to that, as Robert got all his information from Ned.

[Annara Snow]

I dont know if this has been already clarified in the books though, since i've just started reading aSOIAF a couple weeks ago. ( i'm about to finish the first book.) but for what i've seen , it makes you think that Lyanna was just Reaghar's meaningless obsession.

so i don't know, it's all about Robert's perception anyway.

did Lyanna loved Robert/Reaghar?

Hello, it's my very first thread by the way!

It has never been outright stated. All you can do is interpret the hints. I have my opinion based on that and will answer through quotes from the text.

Regarding Robert, what we know is that he was crazy about her and had a very idealized image of her, and may have not even known her real personality (Ned told him: "You knew her beauty, but not the iron underneath"), but on Lyanna's part, while we are not told whether she liked him, she definitely had no illusions about his personality and was sure he was going to cheat on her if/when they get married:

“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.”

According to Ned, Lyanna was: “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.” He notes the similarity between her and Arya, not just in looks: “Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. ‘The wolf blood,’ my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave.” Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. “Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”

So, she was willful and her willfulness contributed to her demise. Maybe by being willing to take active steps to avoid an arranged marriage - to Robert - that she wasn't very keen on? It sure doesn't seem that Ned is speaking about a kidnapping victim.

The most explicit hint about how she felt about Rhaegar comes from a story told in the 3rd book, A Storm of Swords, so I'll put it under spoiler tags. The story also shows how she and Rhaegar probably got to know each other, and provides a contrast between his and Robert's personalities.

From the story of what happened at the Tournament of Harrenhal, which we know was the one where Rhaegar ended up winning and crowning Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty:

“That evening there was to be a feast in Harrenhal, to mark the opening of the tourney, and the she-wolf insisted that the lad attend. He was of high birth, with as much a right to a place on the bench as any other man. She was not easy to refuse, this wolf maid, so he let the young pup find him garb suitable to a king’s feast, and went up to the great castle.

“Under Harren’s roof he ate and drank with the wolves, and many of their sworn swords besides, barrowdown men and moose and bears and mermen. The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle, but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head. A black brother spoke, asking the knights to join the Night’s Watch. The storm lord drank down the knight of skulls and kisses in a wine-cup war. The crannogman saw a maid with laughing purple eyes dance with a white sword, a red snake, and the lord of griffins, and lastly with the quiet wolf... but only after the wild wolf spoke to her on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench.

So, while the frat boy type Robert Baratheon ("storm lord") was drinking with his buddy, and probably singing bawdy songs (we're told in another POV that these were the only songs he liked), the brooding, melancholy Rhaegar ("dragon prince") sang a sad song - and his song made Lyanna ("the wolf maid") so emotional that she cried - even though she was Arya-like, apparently not a girl who normally got so sentimental over things like music. It was enough of an unusual moment to make her younger brother Benjen ('wolf pup") tease her about it.

There are lots of subtle hints in AGOT relating to the recurring motive of Lyanna's love of blue winter roses..

Blue rose is a popular symbolic motive in general, outside of ASOAIF: since they don't exist in nature, they are a symbol of impossible dreams and unattainable love.

“I was with her when she died,” Ned reminded the king. “She

wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father.”

He could hear her still 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 her his word, the

fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes. Ned remembered the

way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched

his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling

from her palm, dead and black. After that he remembered

nothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent with

grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her

hand from his. Ned could recal none of it. “I bring her flowers

when I can,” he said. “Lyanna was... fond of flowers.” The

king touched her cheek, his fingers brushing across the

rough stone as gently as if it were living flesh. “I vowed to kil

Rhaegar for what he did to her.”

“You did,” Ned reminded him.

“Only once,” Robert said bitterly.

----------------------------------------------

Her eyes burned, green fire in the dusk, like the lioness that

was her sigil. “The night of our wedding feast, the first time

we shared a bed, he called me by your sister’s name. He

was on top of me, in me, stinking of wine, and he whispered

Lyanna. “ Ned Stark thought of pale blue roses, and for a

moment he wanted to weep. “I do not know which of you I pity

most.”

---------------------------------------

He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he

had walked a thousand times before. The Kings of Winter

watched him pass with eyes of ice, and the direwolves at

their feet turned their great stone heads and snarled. Last of

all, he came to the tomb where his father slept, with Brandon

and Lyanna beside him. “Promise me, Ned, “ Lyanna’s

statue whispered.

She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept

blood.

------------------------------

And finally - here's the clincher, in Ned's last chapter, when he's reminiscing in his cell:

He could no longer tell the difference between waking and

sleeping. The memory came creeping upon him in the

darkness, as vivid as a dream. It was the year of false spring,

and he was eighteen again, down from the Eyrie to the

tourney at Harrenhal. He could see the deep green of the

grass, and smell the pollen on the wind. Warm days and cool

nights and the sweet taste of wine. He remembered

Brandon’s laughter, and Robert’s berserk valor in the melee,

the way he laughed as he unhorsed men left and right. He

remembered Jaime Lannister, a golden youth in scaled

white armor, kneeling on the grass in front of the king’s

pavilion and making his vows to protect and defend King

Aerys. Afterward, Ser Oswel Whent helped Jaime to his feet,

and the White Bull himself, Lord Commander Ser Gerold

Hightower, fastened the snowy cloak of the Kingsguard

about his shoulders. Al six White Swords were there to

welcome their newest brother.

Yet when the jousting began, the day belonged to Rhaegar

Targaryen. The crown prince wore the armor he would die in:

gleaming black plate with the three-headed dragon of his

House wrought in rubies on the breast. A plume of scarlet

silk streamed behind him when he rode, and it seemed no

lance could touch him. Brandon fel to him, and Bronze Yohn

Royce, and even the splendid Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning.

Robert had been jesting with Jon and old Lord Hunter as the

prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the

final tilt to claim the champion’s crown. Ned remembered the

moment when al the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar

Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish

princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty’s laurel in

Lyanna’s lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses,

blue as frost.

Ned Stark reached out his hand to grasp the flowery crown,

but beneath the pale blue petals the thorns lay hidden. He felt

them clawing at his skin, sharp and cruel, saw the slow trickle

of blood run down his fingers, and woke, trembling, in the

dark.

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of

blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses.

So, blue roses were what Rhaegar gave her at the tournament of Harrenhal, when he pronounced her the Queen of Love and Beauty. It's unlikely she managed to keep those all the time, but he presumably also decorated her room in the Tower of Joy with blue roses, the room where she died in her "bed of blood".

And to go back to the first quote about Lyanna - the very first time we see Ned's memory of her and her death, we were told that she was clutching the blue roses tightly, even though they were all withered and dead by that time, right until she died:

Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black.

[Annara Snow]

double post

[markg171]

It has never been outright stated. All you can do is interpret the hints. I have my opinion based on that and will answer through quotes from the text.

Regarding Robert, what we know is that he was crazy about her and had a very idealized image of her, and may have not even known her real personality (Ned told him: "You knew her beauty, but not the iron underneath"), but on Lyanna's part, while we are not told whether she liked him, she definitely had no illusions about his personality and was sure he was going to cheat on her if/when they get married:

“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.”

According to Ned, Lyanna was: “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.” He notes the similarity between her and Arya, not just in looks: “Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. ‘The wolf blood,’ my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave.” Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. “Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”

So, she was willful and her willfulness contributed to her demise. Maybe by being willing to take active steps to avoid an arranged marriage - to Robert - that she wasn't very keen on? It sure doesn't seem that Ned is speaking about a kidnapping victim.

The most explicit hint about how she felt about Rhaegar comes from a story told in the 3rd book, A Storm of Swords, so I'll put it under spoiler tags. The story also shows how she and Rhaegar probably got to know each other, and provides a contrast between his and Robert's personalities.

From the story of what happened at the Tournament of Harrenhal, which we know was the one where Rhaegar ended up winning and crowning Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty:

“That evening there was to be a feast in Harrenhal, to mark the opening of the tourney, and the she-wolf insisted that the lad attend. He was of high birth, with as much a right to a place on the bench as any other man. She was not easy to refuse, this wolf maid, so he let the young pup find him garb suitable to a king’s feast, and went up to the great castle.

“Under Harren’s roof he ate and drank with the wolves, and many of their sworn swords besides, barrowdown men and moose and bears and mermen. The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle, but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head. A black brother spoke, asking the knights to join the Night’s Watch. The storm lord drank down the knight of skulls and kisses in a wine-cup war. The crannogman saw a maid with laughing purple eyes dance with a white sword, a red snake, and the lord of griffins, and lastly with the quiet wolf... but only after the wild wolf spoke to her on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench.

So, while the frat boy type Robert Baratheon ("storm lord") was drinking with his buddy, and probably singing bawdy songs (we're told in another POV that these were the only songs he liked), the brooding, melancholy Rhaegar ("dragon prince") sang a sad song - and his song made Lyanna ("the wolf maid") so emotional that she cried - even though she was Arya-like, apparently not a girl who normally got so sentimental over things like music. It was enough of an unusual moment to make her younger brother Benjen ('wolf pup") tease her about it.

There are lots of subtle hints in AGOT relating to the recurring motive of Lyanna's love of blue winter roses..

Blue rose is a popular symbolic motive in general, outside of ASOAIF: since they don't exist in nature, they are a symbol of impossible dreams and unattainable love.

“I was with her when she died,” Ned reminded the king. “She

wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father.”

He could hear her still 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 her his word, the

fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes. Ned remembered the

way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched

his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling

from her palm, dead and black. After that he remembered

nothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent with

grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her

hand from his. Ned could recal none of it. “I bring her flowers

when I can,” he said. “Lyanna was... fond of flowers.” The

king touched her cheek, his fingers brushing across the

rough stone as gently as if it were living flesh. “I vowed to kil

Rhaegar for what he did to her.”

“You did,” Ned reminded him.

“Only once,” Robert said bitterly.

----------------------------------------------

Her eyes burned, green fire in the dusk, like the lioness that

was her sigil. “The night of our wedding feast, the first time

we shared a bed, he called me by your sister’s name. He

was on top of me, in me, stinking of wine, and he whispered

Lyanna. “ Ned Stark thought of pale blue roses, and for a

moment he wanted to weep. “I do not know which of you I pity

most.”

---------------------------------------

He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he

had walked a thousand times before. The Kings of Winter

watched him pass with eyes of ice, and the direwolves at

their feet turned their great stone heads and snarled. Last of

all, he came to the tomb where his father slept, with Brandon

and Lyanna beside him. “Promise me, Ned, “ Lyanna’s

statue whispered.

She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept

blood.

------------------------------

And finally - here's the clincher, in Ned's last chapter, when he's reminiscing in his cell:

He could no longer tell the difference between waking and

sleeping. The memory came creeping upon him in the

darkness, as vivid as a dream. It was the year of false spring,

and he was eighteen again, down from the Eyrie to the

tourney at Harrenhal. He could see the deep green of the

grass, and smell the pollen on the wind. Warm days and cool

nights and the sweet taste of wine. He remembered

Brandon’s laughter, and Robert’s berserk valor in the melee,

the way he laughed as he unhorsed men left and right. He

remembered Jaime Lannister, a golden youth in scaled

white armor, kneeling on the grass in front of the king’s

pavilion and making his vows to protect and defend King

Aerys. Afterward, Ser Oswel Whent helped Jaime to his feet,

and the White Bull himself, Lord Commander Ser Gerold

Hightower, fastened the snowy cloak of the Kingsguard

about his shoulders. Al six White Swords were there to

welcome their newest brother.

Yet when the jousting began, the day belonged to Rhaegar

Targaryen. The crown prince wore the armor he would die in:

gleaming black plate with the three-headed dragon of his

House wrought in rubies on the breast. A plume of scarlet

silk streamed behind him when he rode, and it seemed no

lance could touch him. Brandon fel to him, and Bronze Yohn

Royce, and even the splendid Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning.

Robert had been jesting with Jon and old Lord Hunter as the

prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the

final tilt to claim the champion’s crown. Ned remembered the

moment when al the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar

Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish

princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty’s laurel in

Lyanna’s lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses,

blue as frost.

Ned Stark reached out his hand to grasp the flowery crown,

but beneath the pale blue petals the thorns lay hidden. He felt

them clawing at his skin, sharp and cruel, saw the slow trickle

of blood run down his fingers, and woke, trembling, in the

dark.

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of

blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses.

So, blue roses were what Rhaegar gave her at the tournament of Harrenhal, when he pronounced her the Queen of Love and Beauty. It's unlikely she managed to keep those all the time, but he presumably also decorated her room in the Tower of Joy with blue roses, the room where she died in her "bed of blood".

And to go back to the first quote about Lyanna - the very first time we see Ned's memory of her and her death, we were told that she was clutching the blue roses tightly, even though they were all withered and dead by that time, right until she died:

Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black.

Theres quite a lot of misleading information in here and downright twisting of things.

[Annara Snow]

Theres quite a lot of misleading information in here and downright twisting of things.

Oh yeah? Like what?

And who exactly is providing the "misleading information"? GRRM, since he's the one who provided all that information?

[markg171]

Oh yeah? Like what?

And who exactly is providing the "misleading information"? GRRM, since he's the one who provided all that information?

No, you are. You are changing things or ignoring them to suit your purpose.

Regarding Robert, what we know is that he was crazy about her and had a very idealized image of her, and may have not even known her real personality (Ned told him: "You knew her beauty, but not the iron underneath"), but on Lyanna's part, while we are not told whether she liked him, she definitely had no illusions about his personality and was sure he was going to cheat on her if/when they get married:

“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.”

This is a comment from the night her betrothal was made, before she ever met Robert. She has no idea what his personality was. They then spent the next 3-4 years betrothed. We dont have any information from these years, but its incredibly silly to use a quote from before she ever met the guy, or spent the next 3-4 years betrothed to him, to indicate how she felt. It simply shows how she initially felt. We have no idea if that stayed impression stayed or was replaced.

According to Ned, Lyanna was: “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.” He notes the similarity between her and Arya, not just in looks: “Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. ‘The wolf blood,’ my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave.” Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. “Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”

So, she was willful and her willfulness contributed to her demise. Maybe by being willing to take active steps to avoid an arranged marriage - to Robert - that she wasn't very keen on? It sure doesn't seem that Ned is speaking about a kidnapping victim.

Ned directly relates Lyannas death to that of Brandon. Brandon died by being reckless. Yet you said that Lyanna died by being willful, when Ned is saying she died from behaving in a manner similar to Brandon.

The most explicit hint about how she felt about Rhaegar comes from a story told in the 3rd book, A Storm of Swords, so I'll put it under spoiler tags. The story also shows how she and Rhaegar probably got to know each other, and provides a contrast between his and Robert's personalities.

From the story of what happened at the Tournament of Harrenhal, which we know was the one where Rhaegar ended up winning and crowning Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty:

“That evening there was to be a feast in Harrenhal, to mark the opening of the tourney, and the she-wolf insisted that the lad attend. He was of high birth, with as much a right to a place on the bench as any other man. She was not easy to refuse, this wolf maid, so he let the young pup find him garb suitable to a king’s feast, and went up to the great castle.

“Under Harren’s roof he ate and drank with the wolves, and many of their sworn swords besides, barrowdown men and moose and bears and mermen. The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle, but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head. A black brother spoke, asking the knights to join the Night’s Watch. The storm lord drank down the knight of skulls and kisses in a wine-cup war. The crannogman saw a maid with laughing purple eyes dance with a white sword, a red snake, and the lord of griffins, and lastly with the quiet wolf... but only after the wild wolf spoke to her on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench.

So, while the frat boy type Robert Baratheon ("storm lord") was drinking with his buddy, and probably singing bawdy songs (we're told in another POV that these were the only songs he liked), the brooding, melancholy Rhaegar ("dragon prince") sang a sad song - and his song made Lyanna ("the wolf maid") so emotional that she cried - even though she was Arya-like, apparently not a girl who normally got so sentimental over things like music. It was enough of an unusual moment to make her younger brother Benjen ('wolf pup") tease her about it.

This doesnt really display anything. Almost everyone got sad when Rhaegar would play his harp.

So, blue roses were what Rhaegar gave her at the tournament of Harrenhal, when he pronounced her the Queen of Love and Beauty. It's unlikely she managed to keep those all the time, but he presumably also decorated her room in the Tower of Joy with blue roses, the room where she died in her "bed of blood".

He presumably did no such thing. Blue winter roses are the rarest flower in Westoros and only come from Winterfell as far as we know. So he definitely did not decorate her room with them as that would cost an absolute fortune, and how would he get flowers from Winterfell to Dorne

And to go back to the first quote about Lyanna - the very first time we see Ned's memory of her and her death, we were told that she was clutching the blue roses tightly, even though they were all withered and dead by that time, right until she died:

Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black.

She is said to be clutching Neds fingers. Not the rose petals. They were in her palm, but she was clutching Ned.

So yeah, your post was misleading.

[LordStoneheart]

It doesn't matter if Lyanna didn't know Robert very well when she said that. She was 100% correct in her assessment of him.

[Annara Snow]

No, you are. You are changing things or ignoring them to suit your purpose.

I posted quotes, so nope, I didn't change a single thing. I have no "purpose" other than to show what the author hinted with the info available from the books. You're the one intent on ignoring all the info from the books.

This is a comment from the night her betrothal was made, before she ever met Robert. She has no idea what his personality was. They then spent the next 3-4 years betrothed. We dont have any information from these years, but its incredibly silly to use a quote from before she ever met the guy, or spent the next 3-4 years betrothed to him, to indicate how she felt. It simply shows how she initially felt. We have no idea if that stayed impression stayed or was replaced.

It's incredibly silly to think that the only quote in the books about how Lyanna felt about Robert and what she thought of him (which was 100% correct, BTW) is important info on how Lyanna felt about Robert? :rolleyes:

Ned directly relates Lyannas death to that of Brandon. Brandon died by being reckless. Yet you said that Lyanna died by being willful, when Ned is saying she died from behaving in a manner similar to Brandon.

What is your point? How does your interpretation in any way contradict what I said? Why the hell would Ned say that Lyanna's "wolf blood" lead to her death, if she had been a kidnapping victim?

This doesnt really display anything. Almost everyone got sad when Rhaegar would play his harp.

Right, the same logic again: the info that GRRM actually offers as to how Lyanna felt about Rhaegar is irrelevant. Because GRRM likes to put irrelevant things in the books, just because - especially about characters that are extremely important but that we know so little about.

He presumably did no such thing. Blue winter roses are the rarest flower in Westoros and only come from Winterfell as far as we know. So he definitely did not decorate her room with them as that would cost an absolute fortune, and how would he get flowers from Winterfell to Dorne

So, how were they there? Because they definitely were there in her room, and in her hand, cccording to Ned's memories.

She is said to be clutching Neds fingers. Not the rose petals. They were in her palm, but she was clutching Ned.

How were they in her palm, if she was not clutching them? Were they magically glued to her hand somehow, before they fell off? She was obviously holding the rose right until her death. The rose petals only fell from her hand as she was dying, while she was also clutching Ned's hand - "as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. "

So yeah, your post was misleading.

No, it wasn't. You just seem to be in deep denial. Your criticism makes no sense, and you aren't able to offer any contradicting information.

[Lord Lannister]

It doesn't matter if Lyanna didn't know Robert very well when she said that. She was 100% correct in her assessment of him.

We agree on something, a rare occasion! :)

[Pikachu101]

I'm of the opinion that she may of loved Rhaegar at first, or at least was infatuated with him, but fell out of love with him when shit started hitting the fan.

Agreed, people forget that Lyanna was 13 (that's around Sansa's age) at the Tourney and 15 (that was Robb's age when he thought it was a good idea to marry Jeyne) when she ran away.

I don't think it was love she felt for Rhaegar, more girlish infatuation or a ticket to freedom. We don't know what he promised her, Lyanna had a sheltered life in the North which makes it easier for her to be manipulated by a much older and charismatic man.

But I doubt she knew Rhaegar's plan for her to be his baby maker, Lyanna wanted freedom not a baby. I can see her becoming slowly disillusioned during her entrapment, especially if he starts raving about three headed dragons and PTWP.

[Hodor the Articulate]

Well that Lyanna and Rhaegar were in love is speculation, but educated speculation so to say. We don't know for sure yet. Only that she was disdainful of her engagement of Robert, even though she understood it was her duty. The whole "kidnap and rape" story does seem to be revisionist history by Robert among others. Ned definitely never contributed to that.

I would call it interpretation, not speculation. As Annara Snow's post shows, there is quite a bit of text implying that Rhaegar and Lyanna did have a romantic relationship.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

Ahh, cue people saying anyone under *Insert arbitrary age here* cannot truly be in love.

Does no one else think it incredibly patronising. So what if she was 15, 15 year old's fall in love all the time, and no you don't get to tell people that it isn't really love. No one can define love for another person. No one can tell another person if they are in love or not.

Sorry massive pet hate of mine.

[RezBarbie24]

I dont know if this has been already clarified in the books though, since i've just started reading aSOIAF a couple weeks ago. ( i'm about to finish the first book.) but for what i've seen , it makes you think that Lyanna was just Reaghar's meaningless obsession.

so i don't know, it's all about Robert's perception anyway.

did Lyanna loved Robert/Reaghar?

Hello, it's my very first thread by the way!

I mean no offence but there is a Still Reading forum so this question should be in The still reading- Games of thrones Forum because we don't want to spoil anything for you! [emoji4]

My advice is GET OUTTA HERE NOW!!!! RUN, RUN FAR AWAY!!!! FLEE WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!! [emoji13]

Cuz this forum is caught up with all the books... and you've still got a LONG way to go... and this place... well " This place is dark and full of spoilers..."

Lol... I know you won't get that joke till the book... but I couldn't help it!!!

[Lord of the Dreadfort]

Lyanna loved Rhaegar. She never loved Robert, Robert didn't want to see the truth.

my opinion.

[nickdt]

The only thing Lyanna ever loved, was a horse and a sword. She protected Howland Reed at the Tourney of Harrenhal. I think Howland was the man who stole her heart.

[Nic.]

It was hinted at the tourney of harrenhal that Lyanna had a thing for Rhaeggar. I mean given her character traits it's a bit weird that she'd be found crying over a melody/song.

[Annara Snow]

The only thing Lyanna ever loved, was a horse and a sword. She protected Howland Reed at the Tourney of Harrenhal. I think Howland was the man who stole her heart.

He didn't need to steal her heart for her to want to protect him.

[Pigeon Pie]

Probably not the guy she didn't seem very enthusiastic about marrying. Maaaybe the guy she escaped with.

[Bloodmane]

Oh yeah? Like what?

And who exactly is providing the "misleading information"? GRRM, since he's the one who provided all that information?

And he does it magnificently...

[shadow282]

Not Rhaegar, he kidnapped and repeatedly raped her.