rubies

[house of dayne]

rubies have appeared repeatedly throughout the series and are often associated with magic...melisandre with neck ruby which seems to be deeply connected with her fire magic...a magic ruby is also used in the glamour that disguises mance rayder and serves rattleshirt to the fire...it seems rubies have a quality that enhances such magical illusions...

so what are we to make of rhaegar who rode out in an armour of rubies to meet his fate on the trident...much was made of the spectacular nature of his gem encrusted armour and his death started a frenzy as soldiers stopped warring and started instead to plunder the fallen gems

is there a symbolic suggestion that perhaps there is more to to rhaegars death...we have seen mance transformed by rubies, we have seen loras don renlys armour into battle to impersonate his king..though id hate to suggest that rhaegar is alive, im wondering if he did indeed die his public death on the trident...

[Hos the Hostage]

Good point about the rubies, but I don't think Rhaegar is alive or faked his death. His death and him uttering a woman's name in his dying breath are all too detailed for a fake death.

[Lost Melnibonean]

 

 

[Dorian Martell]

1 hour ago, house of dayne said:

rubies have appeared repeatedly throughout the series and are often associated with magic...melisandre with neck ruby which seems to be deeply connected with her fire magic...a magic ruby is also used in the glamour that disguises mance rayder and serves rattleshirt to the fire...it seems rubies have a quality that enhances such magical illusions...

so what are we to make of rhaegar who rode out in an armour of rubies to meet his fate on the trident...much was made of the spectacular nature of his gem encrusted armour and his death started a frenzy as soldiers stopped warring and started instead to plunder the fallen gems

is there a symbolic suggestion that perhaps there is more to to rhaegars death...we have seen mance transformed by rubies, we have seen loras don renlys armour into battle to impersonate his king..though id hate to suggest that rhaegar is alive, im wondering if he did indeed die his public death on the trident...

Rubies symbolize magic, and Rhaegar was greatly influenced by prophecy.  

[Beautiful Bloody Sword]

1 hour ago, house of dayne said:

rubies have appeared repeatedly throughout the series and are often associated with magic...melisandre with neck ruby which seems to be deeply connected with her fire magic...a magic ruby is also used in the glamour that disguises mance rayder and serves rattleshirt to the fire...it seems rubies have a quality that enhances such magical illusions...

so what are we to make of rhaegar who rode out in an armour of rubies to meet his fate on the trident...much was made of the spectacular nature of his gem encrusted armour and his death started a frenzy as soldiers stopped warring and started instead to plunder the fallen gems

is there a symbolic suggestion that perhaps there is more to to rhaegars death...we have seen mance transformed by rubies, we have seen loras don renlys armour into battle to impersonate his king..though id hate to suggest that rhaegar is alive, im wondering if he did indeed die his public death on the trident...

I definitely think you're on the right track, albeit an unpopular one.

[Ashur]

I think that GRRM confirmed that Rhaegar body was cremated:

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Asshai.com_Forum_Chat

I think we can suppose that it happened just after the Trident. Otherwise GRRM wouldn't have given an answer, IMO.

[J. Stargaryen]

I believe Rhaegar's rubies are emblematic of his house and family. The suit of armor he wore at HH and the Trident displayed the Targaryen sigil, and his rubies are compared to fire, and to blood, echoing the Targaryen words.

• They had come together at the ford of the Trident while the battle crashed around them, Robert with his warhammer and his great antlered helm, the Targaryen prince armored all in black. On his breastplate was the three-headed dragon of his House, wrought all in rubies that flashed like fire in the sunlight. - AGoT, Eddard I

• Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman’s name… - ACoK, Daenerys IV (HotU)

[purple-eyes]

My question is, if he did not put so many rubies to decorate the breastplate, 

This will likely increase the strength and integrity of his steel armor. 

Maybe his breastplate will not be crushed through by that war hammer spike. 

This tells us you have to pay some price to be pretty. 

[The 1st Storm and the Last]

If readers are right to recognize that rubies reference magic, I reckon Rhaegar's rubied raiment reiterates the risks related to the use of magic. I see it as a shout-out to the significance of the sheathless sword story. People precariously practice magic without pondering the potential problems it can produce. Presuming prospective power without proper preparation, they don't predict and provision for possible painful predicaments. Martin molds Rhaegar's maiming into a metaphor to make our minds migrate to the mutable, malevolent nature of magic. The innate malice in magic is a major moral in Martin's masterpiece. The man couldn't miss a moment to mash his message into your memory.

[purple-eyes]

Maybe rhaegar is a sorcery prince.

Like visenya. Or bloodraven. Or septon Barth. Or aerys I.  

Or seastar. 

[Banana Beyond the Wall]

Ser Barristan said that Rheagar was unhittable at the tourney of Harrenhall. He wore the same suit of armor at the Battle of the Trident. What we've learned from Arya's POV and Melissa Melisandres POV is that glamours contour the shadows. And we know that rubies are the key binders of spells. Examples include Raddleshirt and Mance, and even Stannis' sword, the hilt has a ruby on it, to give it a nice warm glow.

In AGOT, Joffrey and Sansa went looking for Rheagar's Rubies on Ruby Ford.

Rheagar's seventh, and last, ruby was never found.

Might Rheagar have used glamours to win the ToHH, and then use rubies to put a glamour on "his own body?"

Heck, I know GRRM said that his body was cremated, but so was Mance's, and there he is, doing fun stuffs and Winterfell.

So IMO, Rheagar is still alive, and is hiding somewhere (I'm a strong believer that that place is Mance).

[Banana Beyond the Wall]

Ser Barristan said that Rheagar was unhittable at the tourney of Harrenhall. He wore the same suit of armor at the Battle of the Trident. What we've learned from Arya's POV and Melissa Melisandres POV is that glamours contour the shadows. And we know that rubies are the key binders of spells. Examples include Raddleshirt and Mance, and even Stannis' sword, the hilt has a ruby on it, to give it a nice warm glow.

In AGOT, Joffrey and Sansa went looking for Rheagar's Rubies on Ruby Ford.

Rheagar's seventh, and last, ruby was never found.

Might Rheagar have used glamours to win the ToHH, and then use rubies to put a glamour on "his own body?"

Heck, I know GRRM said that his body was cremated, but so was Mance's, and there he is, doing fun stuffs and Winterfell.

So IMO, Rheagar is still alive, and is hiding somewhere (I'm a strong believer that that place is Mance).

[purple-eyes]

18 minutes ago, Banana Beyond the Wall said:

Ser Barristan said that Rheagar was unhittable at the tourney of Harrenhall. He wore the same suit of armor at the Battle of the Trident. What we've learned from Arya's POV and Melissa Melisandres POV is that glamours contour the shadows. And we know that rubies are the key binders of spells. Examples include Raddleshirt and Mance, and even Stannis' sword, the hilt has a ruby on it, to give it a nice warm glow.

In AGOT, Joffrey and Sansa went looking for Rheagar's Rubies on Ruby Ford.

Rheagar's seventh, and last, ruby was never found.

Might Rheagar have used glamours to win the ToHH, and then use rubies to put a glamour on "his own body?"

Heck, I know GRRM said that his body was cremated, but so was Mance's, and there he is, doing fun stuffs and Winterfell.

So IMO, Rheagar is still alive, and is hiding somewhere (I'm a strong believer that that place is Mance).

Although I do not think rhaegar is mance, his rubies were mentioned too many times to be ignored. 

Maybe it is just a metaphor that the blood of dragon was spilled around: like viserys and dany in essos, jon in north, aegon in essos, bloodraven is outside the wall, aemon is in the wall, possibly tyrion in casterly rock, etc. 

[house of dayne]

On 1/31/2016 at 6:46 PM, The 1st Storm and the Last said:

If readers are right to recognize that rubies reference magic, I reckon Rhaegar's rubied raiment reiterates the risks related to the use of magic. I see it as a shout-out to the significance of the sheathless sword story. People precariously practice magic without pondering the potential problems it can produce. Presuming prospective power without proper preparation, they don't predict and provision for possible painful predicaments. Martin molds Rhaegar's maiming into a metaphor to make our minds migrate to the mutable, malevolent nature of magic. The innate malice in magic is a major moral in Martin's masterpiece. The man couldn't miss a moment to mash his message into your memory.

Excellent use of alliteration

[J. Stargaryen]

On 1/31/2016 at 11:47 PM, purple-eyes said:

Although I do not think rhaegar is mance, his rubies were mentioned too many times to be ignored.

Maybe it is just a metaphor that the blood of dragon was spilled around: like viserys and dany in essos, jon in north, aegon in essos, bloodraven is outside the wall, aemon is in the wall, possibly tyrion in casterly rock, etc. 

Definitely. And it's too coincidental that there is a historical figure with ties to the Wars of the Roses called the Black Prince (probably for his armor), whose ruby -- The Black Prince's Ruby -- sits front and center on the U.K.'s Imperial State Crown. - Picture of the ruby

Along those lines, soon after the rubies on Rhaegar's chest were scattered, Aerys sent his wife and son across the bay to the island of Dragonstone. If the rubies on Rhaegar's chest represent House Targaryen, then it could be argued that the scattering of the rubies in the Trident symbolically mirrors Rhaella and Viserys fleeing to DS, and/or Viserys and Daenerys later fleeing across the Narrow Sea.

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

I have a complicated and tinfoil-y theory about this.

Short version: Rhaegar did die, but when he fell into the river his blood in the water mingled with the blood of other dying men, and his consciousness went into a nearby man who had just suffered a head injury (making him mentally not-all-there and thus much easier pickings for being skinchanged).

And that nearby man later washed up on the Quiet Isle and became the Elder Brother. An uneducated common soldier who suddenly found himself quite interested in books and harps, and a leader of men. He shaves his head because, when he sees his reflection, he can't shake the feeling that it's the wrong color. He lives modestly but polishes his driftwood furniture until it gleams like familiar gold.

 

We see from Mirri Maz Duur's ritual with Drogo that bloody water seems to facilitate soul/consciousness transfer between bodies. We know the Elder Brother was struck in the head while in the Trident, near Rhaegar. We know head/brain injuries make one more susceptible to being skinchanged.

Rubies as an allegory for someone's life/soul/essence are established through Melisandre. Her ruby is said to throb along with her pulse and to glow like a third eye. She uses a ruby to transform one man into another man, and metaphorically gives Mance a second life.

So I think in the Rhaegar story, the rubies represent his life force going into the river--knocked out of its original setting, as it were--and later washing up on the Quiet Isle, in the form of the Elder Brother.

I'm not sure what the missing seventh ruby is supposed to represent, unless it means that something is blocking EB's memories of being Rhaegar--that these memories are "missing" like the final ruby--and the seventh ruby stands for something that will trigger these memories and instigate Rhaegar to act in some way, or impart some information to someone.

 

Edit: PS, My confidence in this theory has been boosted somewhat by reading GRRM's short story "The Glass Flower." Give it a read if you are interested.

[The 1st Storm and the Last]

On February 4, 2016 at 4:50 PM, Blind Beth the Cat Lady said:

 

Rubies as an allegory for someone's life/soul/essence are established through Melisandre. Her ruby is said to throb along with her pulse and to glow like a third eye. She uses a ruby to transform one man into another man, and metaphorically gives Mance a second life.

 

I'm not so sure about the whole deal with transferring his life-force into another person thing. But conceivably - though extremely unlikely - Rhaegar's armor could have acted like Rattleshirt's bones in combination with the rubies to produce a glamor. Rhaegar could still be alive, roaming Essos in a crazy disguise, dyed hair and beard, invading the dreams of and looking unexplainably sexy to a young Targaryen girl. 

Except when Robert sent the rubies flying with his big-ass-hammer, the glamor would have worn off and they would have realized it wasn't Rhaegar. So I'm leaning towards dead.

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

20 hours ago, The 1st Storm and the Last said:

I'm not so sure about the whole deal with transferring his life-force into another person thing. But conceivably - though extremely unlikely - Rhaegar's armor could have acted like Rattleshirt's bones in combination with the rubies to produce a glamor. Rhaegar could still be alive, roaming Essos in a crazy disguise, dyed hair and beard, invading the dreams of and looking unexplainably sexy to a young Targaryen girl. 

Except when Robert sent the rubies flying with his big-ass-hammer, the glamor would have worn off and they would have realized it wasn't Rhaegar. So I'm leaning towards dead.

To me, the life-force transfer seems more likely--well, more possible--than Rhaegar being physically alive. Especially as Daario, lol.

(I think it's funny how many theories people have about Daario when to me he seems like the most straightforward character in the whole series. At most I think he may be keeping tabs on Dany for Illyrio--the two of them probably met at a Fancy Beard Enthusiasts club :-P)

 

As you say, if the rubies were used as a glamour, it would have been destroyed with Rhaegar's armor. So I see no way he could be physically alive. Either he's gone-gone, or in his "second life."

Although if I'm right, I must say it's quite a rip-off that Rhaegar gets a second life but not Lyanna...