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Why did Rhaegar give the garland to Lyanna? A Harrenhal discussion...


Rippounet

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Precisely, the insulted one was Elia, not Lyanna. The crown is an honor, not an invitation for lust.

In traditional courtly love, it certainly can be construed as a signal that you think a woman is hot and you wouldn't mind having an affair with her. Doesn't mean she'll immediately spread her legs, of course, but it can be seen a signal of interest on the part of the man.

Many contemporary writer of the middle-age wrote (often with disaproval) that the mores of courtly love (of which the crowning of a queen of Love and beauty is a part) was designed to hide and/or facilitate illicit affairs.

If you won a tournament and don't want to cause a scandal, you'd give the crown to your wife. If you are not married but want to start an honorable courtship, you can give it to an ummarried lady of comparable standing. This could be the start of a successful and not scandalous courtship if the father judge you a good match. If you are not married and don't want to send the wrong message, you can probably give the crown to a sister or to the properly married and respectable highest ranking lady in attendance, assuming no reasonable man could believe you would be in a position to start an affair.

But if you are married and give the crown to a pretty young woman who is fiancee to someone else? Sure, I can see the scandal.

And yes, it can be seen as an invitation to lust. It doesn't mean that's what Rhaegar meant, but it sure as hell can be interpreted like that because it's a given plenty of knights before meant it like that. Or do you think in real life no affair were ever started when a dashing knight gave the crown to a pretty woman? These guys were superstars of their time and the attendance was full of the equivalent of groupies. It's as if a major sport MVP singled out a woman and told the world he thing she's hot. Of course it often leads to affairs. It's basic human nature, really.

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We do not know that Rhaegar explained himself to Elia and Lewyn or that they accepted said explanation.

My point is that even if he had explained himself to both, Doran would not support him with all his forces, because in that case it is Doran's opinion that matters. Even if Rhaegar had it explained to Doran, his explanation is suspected since the prince was in Dorne with Lyanna, ie even if Doran had accepted Rhaegar's apology from the start, it is possible that he considered that Rhaegar was not being completely honest.

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In traditional courtly love, it certainly can be construed as a signal that you think a woman is hot and you wouldn't mind having an affair with her.

Many contemporary writer of the middle-age wrote (often with disaproval) that the mores of courtly love (of which the crowning of a queen of Love and beauty is a part) was designed to hide and/or facilitate illicit affairs.

If you won a tournament and don't want to cause a scandal, you'd give the crown to your wife. If you are not married but want to start an honorable courtship, you can give it to an ummarried lady of comparable standing. This could be the start of a successful and not scandalous courtship if the father judge you a good match. If you are not married and don't want to send the wrong message, you can probably give the crown to a sister or to the properly married and respectable highest ranking lady in attendance, assuming no reasonable man could believe you would be in a position to start an affair.

But if you are married and give the crown to a pretty young woman who is fiancee? Sure, I can see the scandal.

And yes, it can be seen as an invitation to lust. It doesn't mean that's what Rhaegar meant, but it sure as hell can interpreted like that because it's a given plenty of knights before meant it like that. Or do you think in real life no affair were ever started when a dashing knight gave the crown to a pretty woman? These guys were superstars, it's like a major sport MVP singling out a woman and telling to the world he thing she's hot. Of course it often leads to affairs. It's basic human nature, really.

So when Bonifer Hasty named Rhaella Targaryen his Queen of Love and Beauty, was it a scandal?

In my opinion, there is a huge difference between courtship and insinuate an affair. An unmarried knight give the crown to a lady to honor her is a great way to draw her attention to start his courtship. A married prince grant such an honor to a young single girl does not imply an affair, only in someone's head where this idea was previously inserted.

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But if you are married and give the crown to a pretty young woman who is fiancee? Sure, I can see the scandal.

And yes, it can be seen as an invitation to lust. It doesn't mean that's what Rhaegar meant, but it sure as hell can interpreted like that because it's a given plenty of knights before meant it like that. Or do you think in real life no affair were ever started when a dashing knight gave the crown to a pretty woman? These guys were superstars, it's like a major sport MVP singling out a woman and telling to the world he thing she's hot. Of course it often leads to affairs. It's basic human nature, really.

No need to go as far as courtly love. When you attend an event with a woman and everyone knows she's your partner, even if only for the event, you don't make presents to other women. You don't show interest in them in any way that can be interpreted as sexual in nature. Especially when the words "LOVE and beauty" are all but written there and everyone knows they are.

Shortly before my graduation ball, I broke up with my boyfriend, so I invited a friend to accompany me. That was the night he met his future wife. It was love from first sight. And guess what? He didn't leave me to sit alone at the table while he chased after her. No, he asked me, very politely, whether I'd mind if he invited her to dance. Just like he did with some other girls. He danced with other girls, I danced with other guys. He simply knew that it wouldn't do to spend the entire evening with another girl when he had come with me and everyone knew it. Although all my friends knew that I wasn't in love with him and he wasn't in love with me. There are simply rules that you observe, or you come across as a lout. And yes, if he had pasted himself at her side, everyone would have made the (correct) conclusion that he wanted to sleep with her. Just like everyone probably decided that Rhaegar wanted to sleep with the beauty queen that he loved, as referenced by the very title and his being a lout to his wife.

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So when Bonifer Hasty named Rhaella Targaryen his Queen of Love and Beauty, was it a scandal?

In my opinion, there is a huge difference between courtship and insinuate an affair. An unmarried knight give the crown to a lady to honor her is a great way to draw her attention to start his courtship. A married prince grant such an honor to a young single girl does not imply an affair, only in someone's head where this idea was previously inserted.

That's smack in the list of potential non-scandalous nomination I mentioned (the last one in the 3rd paragraph). Naming the highest ranking woman present 'Queen of love and Beauty' shouldn't be scandalous because people would not assume a knight that isn't part of the regular court of the Queen would be in position to start an affair.

Was he ever in position where an affaire was a possibility in the eyes of the people? Was she married? That would determine the scandal.

And do note that Bonifer was indeed in love with Rhaella so that would be an example of giving the crown with lust in your intent.

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And yes, if he had pasted himself at her side, everyone would have made the (correct) conclusion that he wanted to sleep with her. Just like everyone probably decided that Rhaegar wanted to sleep with the beauty queen that he loved, as referenced by the very title and his being a lout to his wife.

Yeah, there are some basic rules of etiquette that border on common sense. You are married and won a tournament? Name your wife Queen of Love and Beauty. Doesn't matter is she's fat, if you hate her or if you actually are having an affair with the woman you intend to give the crown to. You name your wife! I bet a Westerosi stand-up comedian make a killing bit over that incident...

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That's smack in the list of potential non-scandalous nomination I mentioned (the last one in the 3rd paragraph). Naming the highest ranking woman present 'Queen of love and Beauty' shouldn't be scandalous because people would not assume a knight that isn't part of the regular court of the Queen would be in position to start an affair.

Was he ever in position where an affaire was a possibility in the eyes of the people? Was she married? That would determine the scandal.

And do note that Bonifer was indeed in love with Rhaella so that would be an example of giving the crown with lust in your intent.

The queen was Betha Blackwood. Aegon V was still alive and Rhaella was a single lady. And love is different fom lust. And this was a reply to your statement that:

If you are not married but want to start an honorable courtship, you can give it to an ummarried lady of comparable standing.

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Yeah, there are some basic rules of etiquette that border on common sense. You are married and won a tournament? Name your wife Queen of Love and Beauty. Doesn't matter is she's fat, if you hate her or if you actually are having an affair with the woman you intend to give the crown to. You name your wife! I bet a Westerosi stand-up comedian make a killing bit over that incident...

We are told several times that if a knight from the king's guard grants such honor for a young unmarried lady, this is not offensive because such a knight has a vow to not marry. Since he is not courting such lady, the gesture is seen as a tribute to her. A married prince is not looking to court a lady either, since he is already married, so, unless you suppose that such prince is looking for a mistress, such a gesture simply means that he is honoring the beauty of this young lady. See, all this is different from a situation where a single man gives such honor to an equally single woman. Or should we assume that Rhaegar's stupid to the point of publicly courting a young woman, seeking to make her his mistress, in front of the entire court and his own wife?

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I don't think it's possible to deny that everyone would see the garland first as a mark of interest, and that coming from a married man to a girl, it would be seen as scandalous by almost everyone.


And it was, I don't think the World Book or Ned's thoughts are ambiguous on the matter.



I agree Elia was the one actually insulted though. And possibly Robert. Brandon's reaction is too strong, even for a "wolf-blooded" Stark.



There was this idea on the first page that creating a scandal could have diverted Rhaegar's enemies from what he was really doing. There's also been the idea that Rhaegar diverted all the fuss about TKotLT to himself, thus protecting whoever it was (though one might question if it was actually Lyanna then... ).


Maybe the scandal allowed... Something to happen? Something which Aerys's crowd would have noticed otherwise?


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I don't think it's possible to deny that everyone would see the garland first as a mark of interest, and that coming from a married man to a girl, it would be seen as scandalous by almost everyone.

And it was, I don't think the World Book or Ned's thoughts are ambiguous on the matter.

I agree Elia was the one actually insulted though. And possibly Robert. Brandon's reaction is too strong, even for a "wolf-blooded" Stark.

There was this idea on the first page that creating a scandal could have diverted Rhaegar's enemies from what he was really doing. There's also been the idea that Rhaegar diverted all the fuss about TKotLT to himself, thus protecting whoever it was (though one might question if it was actually Lyanna then... ).

Maybe the scandal allowed... Something to happen? Something which Aerys's crowd would have noticed otherwise?

The scandal would exist only if the prince presented a prior scandalous behavior in order to give credibility to such interpretation. Such as if Rhaegar was previously behaving like Aegon IV. What we have in the case of Rhaegar's gesture is perplexity, not scandal. Only Brandon reacts, because the idea of an affair had been previously inserted in his mind.

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We are told several times that if a knight from the king's guard grants such honor for a young unmarried lady, this is not offensive because such a knight has a vow to not marry. Since he is not courting such lady, the gesture is seen as a tribute to her. A married prince is not looking to court a lady either, since he is already married, so, unless you suppose that such prince is looking for a mistress, such a gesture simply means that he is honoring the beauty of this young lady. See, all this is different from a situation where a single man gives such honor to an equally single woman. Or should we assume that Rhaegar's stupid to the point of publicly courting a young woman, seeking to make her his mistress, in front of the entire court and his own wife?

King's Guard should be fine, though we know some of them have broken their vows so it depends on which King's guard does it.

But married men have affairs very commonly. A married man giving the crown to another woman adds to the scandal, it doesn't prevent it. And why would people seeing Rhaegar give the crown to Lyanna not assume he was courting her in public under cover of courtly love? They don't know him personally and nobles tends not to be discreet about their affairs. As I said, contemporary to real courtly love have criticized the gimmicks entouring tehse rituals as being ways to facilitate illicit affairs under the cover just honoring women chastely. And maybe you believe people in those time period were much more virtuous than we are now, but I expect they were just as libidinous as we are today.

When the MVP of the tournament singles out a woman in attendance and says she's hot, he wants to bang her more often than not if she'll let him. We're talking basic human nature, here.

So maybe Rhaegar didn't mean it that way, but I can see why everybody else did.

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Even if we accept that Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree, she fought for the the honor and the defense of one of House Stark's vassals, that is, she was fulfilling her duty as a Stark. I do not see how this is compatible with a frivolous girl who runs away from a wedding, dishonoring her House.

Because 14/15 year old girls never fall in love and make mistakes because of it? If love was a factor then somebody fell in love, either Lyanna, Rhaegar, or both, and ended up doing some frivolous things. If a crown prince in his early 20s can do it, why not a Stark girl in her mid teens? Because people who are honorable in THIS area are always honorable in THAT area? This is to assume that good people are perfect and don't make mistakes.

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The scandal would exist only if the prince presented a prior scandalous behavior in order to give credibility to such interpretation. Such as if Rhaegar was behaving like Aegon IV. What we have in the case of Rhaegar's gesture, it is perplexity, not scandal. Only Brandon reacts, because the idea of an affair had been previously inserted in his mind.

Or if it's the first step in a sequence of such scandalous behavior. That might have been Rhaegar making his first steps at being Aegon IV. And I really don't see why we shouldn't see Rhaegar as showing that he was sexually, romantically interested in this young woman if he was ready to slap his wife publicly like this in the light of him later leaving his wife and newborn heir to make the same young woman his mistress. We never see a single occasion of him showing care to his wife, so why should he do it at Harrenhall?

Brandon reacted because he saw it as an insult to his House - a declared intention of the married crown prince to chase Lyanna or perhaps a declaration that he had already bedded her.

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The queen was Betha Blackwood. Aegon V was still alive and Rhaella was a single lady. And love is different fom lust.

Yes, and that didn't end well. Aerys eventually accused his wife of cheating on him.

I don't know about the love/lust angle, the two are closely linked IRL, but this is a work of fiction. Which sometimes reads like a historical novel, and sometimes like a fantasy/epic novel. But with characters who are very modern in many of their thoughts, whatever realism Martin sought to create. So it's hard to judge how much "lustful thinking" one could see in the garland, the books don't make that as clear as one would like.

In such an instance though, Jorah went straight to Lord Hightower to ask for his daughter's hand. So the garland as a symbol of burning desire can't be dismissed. Robert's laugh could easily be seen as ribaldry. Brandon's outrage could also be seen as coming from the "lustful meaning" of the garland.

But this is precisely why it's a "good question." There's one very obvious interpretation for the garland, but it's very weird for the characters and context.

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There was this idea on the first page that creating a scandal could have diverted Rhaegar's enemies from what he was really doing. There's also been the idea that Rhaegar diverted all the fuss about TKotLT to himself, thus protecting whoever it was (though one might question if it was actually Lyanna then... ).

Maybe the scandal allowed... Something to happen? Something which Aerys's crowd would have noticed otherwise?

It's possible...

But I assume he was smitten and did something stupid because of it until we see better clues.

And I'm not saying he did not scheme to have his father deposed, I'm just saying that being smitten can lead you to do things that are otherwise counterproductive to your goals. These things happens all the time.

In other words, I don't need to reconciliate his subtler and more rational actions with his actions in regards to Lyanna. He had plans, they got fucked up because he was smitten. Happens to the best of us.

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King's Guard should be fine, though we know some of them have broken their vows so it depends on which King's guard does it.

But married men have affairs very commonly. A married man giving the crown to another woman adds to the scandal, it doesn't prevent it. And why would people seeing Rhaegar give the crown to Lyanna not assume he was courting her in public under cover of courtly love? They don't know him personally and nobles tends not to be discreet about their affairs. As I said, contemporary to real courtly love have criticized the gimmicks entouring tehse rituals as being ways to facilitate illicit affairs under the cover just honoring women chastely. And maybe you believe people in those time period were much more virtuous than we are now, but I expect they were just as libidinous as we are today.

When the MVP of the tournament singles out a woman in attendance and says she's hot, he wants to bang her more often than not if she'll let him. We're talking basic human nature, here.

So maybe Rhaegar didn't mean it that way, but I can see why everybody else did.

Rhaegar was a cipher to everyone. Nobody knew what he thought. So, more then a scandal, it was a shock. There is an atmosphere of perplexity after such act. There isn't any report about Elia's reaction, not a single report. The first thing everybody did after Rhaegar gave the crown to Lyanna probably was to look to Elia to see her reaction. Elia didn't react, which is very telling, in my opinion. In fact, Yandel would die for such reaction, since his bias in favor of Robert and Tywin.

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So when Bonifer Hasty named Rhaella Targaryen his Queen of Love and Beauty, was it a scandal?

In my opinion, there is a huge difference between courtship and insinuate an affair. An unmarried knight give the crown to a lady to honor her is a great way to draw her attention to start his courtship. A married prince grant such an honor to a young single girl does not imply an affair, only in someone's head where this idea was previously inserted.

But it's well known that Ser Bonifer loved Princess Rhaella. Given his deep love, would it be strange to suppose that he would have wanted to consummate that love physically? It is also probable that both Ser Bonifer and Rhaella were both single at the time of her crowning by him. Even if she were already married to Aerys, then it would not be super scandalous of for a single knight, known to be chaste, to crown the Queen. Even then though, I'm sure it would start some people gossiping.

A married prince giving the crown to an unmarried girl was obviously scandalous. There should be no confusion on that matter.

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But it's well known that Ser Bonifer loved Princess Rhaella. Given his deep love, would it be strange to suppose that he would have wanted to consummate that love physically? It is also probable that both Ser Bonifer and Rhaella were both single at the time of her crowning by him. Even if she were already married to Aerys, then it would not be super scandalous of for a single knight, known to be chaste, to crown the Queen. Even then though, I'm sure it would start some people gossiping.

A married prince giving the crown to an unmarried girl was obviously scandalous. There should be no confusion on that matter.

Bonifer Hasty loved Rhaella, as Aemon loved Naerys, but when you love someone you do not dishonor such person. Both would only consummate such love if they could marry their beloved.

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Bonifer Hasty loved Rhaella, as Aemon loved Naerys, but when you love someone you do not dishonor such person. Both would only consummate such love if they could marry their beloved.

Or maybe they would consummate such love if they could get away with it without facing dire consequence. We hardly know these people. Hell, maybe they did consummate and didn't get caught! What do we know.

Your view of human behaviour seems highly idealized to me.

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Um, I've gotten gifts from men who were not remotely interested in sleeping with me.

Think so? Excluding prompted gifts (secret santa at the office etc.) reciprocated gifts, and gifts for services rendered straight males don't give gifts to women unless its part of a mating ritual. Its simple biology. Sure there are some aberrations out there that can't make sense of their genetic programming but by and large no.

And the Queen of Love and Beauty crown is not a "gift." It's supposed to go to the most beautiful woman present. Crowning her was a compliment to her, and an insult to Elia, but it does NOT indicate that Rhaegar had any intention at the time of sleeping with Lyanna.

Lyanna was fourteen, not thirteen, and marriageable by Westerosi standards.

Of course its a gift. Any item given unearned is a gift. I guess you could argue it was an award or trophy but thats a stretch. Its not supposed to go to the most beautiful woman present or else why would we see examples of the crown going to sisters and old ladies? Its a tool to win favor, which is also what a gift is.

How can you possibly say it wasn't a blatant attempt to drop Lyannas small clothes when he kidnapped/eloped with her directly thereafter?

Its a mating ritual that is ALMOST ubiquitous in human cultures. The Birdman of Rapa nui, high school athletes giving cheer leaders/other girls their practice jerseys to wear, the crown of love and beauty.

Its all about courage, strength, and daring (good genes) being represented by a physical item (an egg, jersey, flower crown) and given to a woman. The meaning is pretty plain. I want to give you my genes.

If a guy gives the item to his sister its a statement in itself that he is open for business so ladies feel free to step on up. Its not a specific request but an open invitation. Selmy thinks about how he would have given the crown to Ashara Dayne then goes on to think how pointless that would have been because he was sworn to celibacy. Read that passage and its pretty clear that the crown of love and beauty is pretty specifically meant for a girl whose bones you intend to jump.

I might not know much but anthropology and how it relates to human sexuality is one of the few things I DO know. Marketing/advertising can be distilled almost entirely down to it. Once you accept the fact that an organisms only purpose is to reproduce (males as much as possible, females the best offspring possible) the rest is easy.

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