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R+L=J v.156


J. Stargaryen

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And hey, do you "gotta" reduce the conversation down to such simplicity? And no, Elia is a fictional character as is Rhaegar and Lyanna.

 

 

GRRM who minored in history said himself that he referenced the fourteenth century for his sources, as well as the traditional classics he grew up on like "The War of the Roses," the story of King Arthur and Ivanhoe, Shakespeare, Faulkner and Tolkien. I would not be at all surprised if Moorecock was not an influence.

 

All writers start from something, taking or rejecting bits and pieces, melding and making the story their own.

 

Fourteenth century, European and British nobility very seldom married for love, though couples could come to a congenial understanding, which is why the notions of mistresses was not so out of the ordinary so long as it was treated with discretion. There was the double standard regarding wives taking lovers because of the importance of knowing that the blood flowing through the intended heirs veins belonged to the very titled and powerful, biological father.

In a time when land and power were the pillars of society, a bloodline-obsessed nobility had to be sure the land and name they were passing off to an heir truly belonged the biological father.

 

For a Queen, infidelity often meant death because it was considered treachery.

 

 

"The books reflect a patriarchal society based on the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages were not a time of sexual egalitarianism. It was very classist, dividing people into three classes. And they had strong ideas about the roles of women. One of the charges against Joan of Arc that got her burned at the stake was that she wore men’s clothing—that was not a small thing. There were, of course, some strong and competent women. It still doesn’t change the nature of the society."  - GRRM

 

 

While "brood mare" is a bit harsh, the reality is, that was what they did. And they could also be legally beaten.

 

 

 

 

Alia also sees someone taking fictional characters and using them as a receptical for their own personal angst.

 

 

"I have always agreed with William Faulkner. He said the human heart in conflict with itself is the only thing worth writing about. I've always taken that as my guiding principle, and the rest is just set dressing. I mean, you can have a dragon, you can have a science fiction story set on a distant planet with aliens and starships, you can have a western about a gunslinger, or a mystery novel about a private eye, or even literary fiction- and ultimately you're still writing about the human heart in conflict with itself. So that's the the way I try to approach this this thing.  And while I've worked within a genre, I've never liked to be bound by them. " George R. Martin, The Atlantic interiviewed by Rachael Brown, July 2011.

 

 

 

"Marriage was a form of political alliance. It was a way to cement a political alliance – one of the ways to bind to families together and hopefully make peace between them or to establish that… they would be allies against a third common enemy. You didn’t want your sons or daughters, if you were a lord, marrying for love. That was, that was insane… If you had a vassal whose loyalty you questioned, maybe you married him to one of your daughters and thereby bind him more closely to the family. If you have a rival you’d been at war with and now you make peace, you marry a daughter to his son…”“-GRRM

 

I do not have any interest in personal attack because I do not even know you personally. 

Come on, we are just posters under fake names who are judging pure fictional characters. 

 

You favor Rhaegar and Lyanna and hate Elia, I understand. 

But if you are trying to tell me Rhaegar is doing a right, noble and honorable thing by escaping his family (loveless, as you suggested) and eloping and hiding with his "true love" and trusting everything to his mad father, you should better try to ask GRRM to make Rhaegar as a single man firstly.

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I do not have any interest in personal attack because I do not even know you personally. 

Come on, we are just posters under fake names who are judging pure fictional characters. 

 

You favor Rhaegar and Lyanna and hate Elia, I understand. 

But if you are trying to tell me Rhaegar is doing a right, noble and honorable thing by escaping his family (loveless, as you suggested) and eloping and hiding with his "true love" and trusting everything to his mad father, you should better try to ask GRRM to make Rhaegar as a single man firstly.

 

:shocked:

 

It's not for me to favor. As for Elia, she's never done anything to me. :wideeyed: 

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And hey, do you "gotta" reduce the conversation down to such simplicity? And no, Elia is a fictional character as is Rhaegar and Lyanna.

 

 

Hey now.. they're been an awful lotta simplifying going on in the last 20+ pages of RLJ thread, and not all of it coming from me. And virtually every other character in every other thread that is created in this forum gets put into a two dimensional box. I almost always push for a 3D analysis of characters, because no one is really two dimensional.

 

Examples of character simplifying:

Cat gets hate for hating of Jon Snow

Ned gets hate for being too honor bound

Stannis for being too rigid

Robert for being a lousy father and drunken whore monger

Tywin for being a lousy human being

Tyrion for wallowing in self-pity and projecting his own self loathing harmfully on others

Cersei for her... well too many things to count

 

If we're to believe Rhaegar abandoned his 'weak' wife for a very young girl he didn't even know out of 'love'-- the assessment that he acted recklessly, arrogantly, selfishly, and stupidly is pretty accurate. That's why a part of me is hesitant to fully buy into the whole love angle because I feel like it is pretty shallow from a character perspective.

 

If he was just trying to fulfill the prophecy, he was reducing Lyanna to a brood mare as well. That's especially sick if you ask me. Say what you will about Robert, at least he was just trying to get his rocks off.

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Hey now.. they're been an awful lotta simplifying going on in the last 20+ pages of RLJ thread, and not all of it coming from me. And virtually every other character in every other thread that is created in this forum gets put into a two dimensional box. I almost always push for a 3D analysis of characters, because no one is really two dimensional.

 

Examples of character simplifying:

Cat gets hate for hating of Jon Snow

Ned gets hate for being too honor bound

Stannis for being too rigid

Robert for being a lousy father and drunken whore monger

Tywin for being a lousy human being

Tyrion for wallowing in self-pity and projecting his own self loathing harmfully on others

Cersei for her... well too many things to count

 

If we're to believe Rhaegar abandoned his 'weak' wife for a very young girl he didn't even know out of 'love'-- the assessment that he acted recklessly, arrogantly, selfishly, and stupidly is pretty accurate. That's why a part of me is hesitant to fully buy into the whole love angle because I feel like it is pretty shallow from a character perspective.

 

If he was just trying to fulfill the prophecy, he was reducing Lyanna to a brood mare as well. That's especially sick if you ask me. Say what you will about Robert, at least he was just trying to get his rocks off.

 

“The battle between good and evil is a theme of much of fantasy. But I think the battle between good and evil is thought largely within the individual human heart, by the decisions that we make. “It’s not like evil dresses up in black clothing and you know, they’re really ugly. These are some of the things that Tolkien did; he made them work fabulously, but in the hands of his imitators, they become total clichés. I mean the orc-like creatures who always do dress in black and … they’re really ugly and they’ve got facial deformities or something. You can tell that if somebody’s ugly, he must be evil. And then Tolkien’s heroes are all very attractive people and all that, of course, again this become cliché in the hands of the Tolkien imitators.” –GRRM by James Poniewozik, Time April 18, 2012

 

And this is why he writes grey characters.

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“The battle between good and evil is a theme of much of fantasy. But I think the battle between good and evil is thought largely within the individual human heart, by the decisions that we make. “It’s not like evil dresses up in black clothing and you know, they’re really ugly. These are some of the things that Tolkien did; he made them work fabulously, but in the hands of his imitators, they become total clichés. I mean the orc-like creatures who always do dress in black and … they’re really ugly and they’ve got facial deformities or something. You can tell that if somebody’s ugly, he must be evil. And then Tolkien’s heroes are all very attractive people and all that, of course, again this become cliché in the hands of the Tolkien imitators.” –GRRM by James Poniewozik, Time April 18, 2012

 

And this is why he writes grey characters.

 

Well this couldn't have been meant for me. Did you quote the wrong person?
 

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Oh c'mon, you guys crucify the idea of a R+L love story because he was in an arranged marriage, yet Dany & Drogo are star crossed lovers? :shocked:

 

I gotta talk you down on the whole "star crossed lovers" thing. Tho they did make love beneath the stars in front of the entire Dothraki horde, it's important that we remember the term is "sun and stars"
 

"Shekh Ma Shieraki Anni" in Dothraki. :pimp:

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Talking about Drogo, I am always wondering what will happen to dothraki people after they invaded westeros.
Maybe they will be coincidently scared by others and then flee back to Essos?
Hard to imagine 40000 dothraki people stay in westeros permanently.

Hopefully Dany won't be bringing them all with her.;)
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well clearly you read my post wrong

Clearly you miss how that quote impacts your statement.

For those who believe Rhaegar is a vilified saint, they are going to be disappointed.

For THOSE who believe Rhaegar is evil incarnate, they are going to be disappointed.

No white hats, no black hats.

The things we do for love and love is the death of duty permeate Martin's work.
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Clearly you miss how that quote impacts your statement.
For those who believe Rhaegar is a vilified saint, they are going to be disappointed.
For THOSE who believe Rhaegar is evil incarnate, they are going to be disappointed.
No white hats, no black hats.
The things we do for love and love is the death of duty permeate Martin's work.


Thank you for saying this.

Love is the death of duty.
I am glad you finally said this.
Yes, exactly, love is the death of duty for rhaegar.
The time he chose love, his duty is dead than dead.

And I do believe Jaime learned "the things we do for love" from the mouth of rhaegar.
If rhaegar can push all of his family and his half country to a bloody downfall for his love, what is a big deal for Jaime to push Bran out of window for love? :)
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Personally, I think Rhaegar changed his mind about the prophecy at the tourney when he discovered Lyanna Stark as the Knight of the Laughing Tree. I believe Rhaegar and Lyanna were immediately attracted to each other when he discovered her changing under the weirwood, he probably said something super suave, she probably tried to hit him, he probably caught her arm and kissed her, then, as a gentleman should, engaged her with the coitus. After which they probably professed undying love, he told her to be careful and watch out for his dad cause he's crazy, she was probably like, ok, and then she went and did her thing and he went back to the king and was like no one was out there. At some point they hatched a plan to run away together, because 1. Lyanna's a wolfblooded, stubborn, teenage, Stark girl, and 2. Rhaegar is a young man in his early 20's with a wife who can't bear him anymore children, Lyanna is one of the beauties of the 7 kingdoms, Rhaegar is obsessed with prophecy and after discovering Lyanna probably became convinced that the fulfillment of the marriage pact between the Starks and the Targaryens may be an important element in the fulfillment of prophecy and ushering in the birth of TPTWP. This is all just pure speculation but I am absolutely 100% certain it played out, mehhhh, something like this. Rhaegar's not a bad guy, he just made a bad, or good depending on the way you look at it, decision. But in Rhaegar's defense, he had no idea that his father would kill the LP of the North and his eldest son and heir. He probably knew there would be a huge uproar, and he'd have to smooth some feathers, but I don't think he anticipated it spiraling out of control as quickly or as catastrophically as it did.

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