Rhaegar's lack of moral fortitude

[Alan of Rosby]

I know the full details of Robert's Rebellion are not known yet but does anyone know why Rhaegar didn't stand up to Aerys when he fell into insanity?  Rhaegar was universally liked and respected but this shows a major flaw in his character. If I was a character in ASOIAF my opinion of Rhaegar would have been "Well, he was intelligent, handsome, courageous and chivalrous and a highly skilled knight to boot. However, I feel that he evinced a lack of moral fiber by not standing up to Aerys who was tearing his family and the whole kingdom asunder with his madness. In a sense, he was ultimately responsible for the rebellion because he was one of the few people who was capable of stopping Aerys. The Kingsguard swore to obey Aerys until he died so they were honour-bound not to do anything. If Rhaegar locked up his father or killed him it would have been illegal but not dishonourable, Aerys was completely out of control. I think most people would have turned a blind eye."

 

 

[Knight of Onions]

Whatever Aerys had become, he was still Rhaegar's father. Aerys was not as mad yet when Rhaegar was young. He was still seeing his father in Aerys. Also, in all three religions of Westeros, kinslaying is considered one of the worst sins, which indicates that it's a very fundamental rule of Westerosi society.

It probably would have been the best for Westeros if Barristan had let Aerys die in Duskendale so that Rhaegar could take the Iron Throne, as Barristan admits to himself.

[Alan of Rosby]

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Whatever Aerys had become, he was still Rhaegar's father. 

 

I know it's a difficult choice to make but he had a responsibility to the realm as Prince of Dragonstone which trumped his feelings and even his fillial loyalty for his father. 

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Also, in all three religions of Westeros, kinslaying is considered one of the worst sins, which indicates that it's a very fundamental rule of Westerosi society.

To someone as just and honourable as Rhaegar this is more problematic. However, like I said, he didn't have to kill the f**ker, he could have locked him up and called a small council meeting. If they weren't happy with what he did than the situation really was out of his hands but at least he tried. There is precedence for this in our history (with the role of prince and mad king reversed). 

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It probably would have been the best for Westeros if Barristan had let Aerys die in Duskendale so that Rhaegar could take the Iron Throne, as Barristan admits to himself.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Aerys hadn't gone completely mad at this point. Before this, he could be described as being mildly narcissistic: vain, irascible and paranoid. Afterwards he lost the plot entirely. I think Barristan was being too hard on himself in this passage, he can't have been prescient enough to know that he was going to go off his trolley in a big way.

[Peaceable Warmonger]

You're forgetting that not everyone wanted a sane king. Aerys had many supporters in court that he lavishly rewarded. Rhaegar would have been killed if he made obvious attempts to depose his father. Also keep in mind many think the tourney at Harrenhal was funded by Rhaegar so the could speak to the lords about replacing his father.

[Alan of Rosby]

5 minutes ago, Peaceable Warmonger said:

You're forgetting that not everyone wanted a sane king. Aerys had many supporters in court that he lavishly rewarded. Rhaegar would have been killed if he made obvious attempts to depose his father. Also keep in mind many think the tourney at Harrenhal was funded by Rhaegar so the could speak to the lords about replacing his father.

I think you're right. http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Tourney_at_Harrenhal

As usual, the devil is in the details. I can never get the drop on GRR Martin, he seems to have complete mastery over his own fictional universe.

[daccu65]

The question I have is could Rhaegar have realistically gathered the support needed to overthrow Aerys?  Okay, Aerys is increasingly insane, but he still has supporters, doesn't he? 

Say Rhaegar gets the support of the Kingsguard, stalks into the Red Keep and imprisons Aerys.  Word will get out and will Aerys' supporters try to free him?  In other words, could Rhaegar's effort to overthrow his father have triggered an even more horrific civil war than Roberts Rebellion?  Even if Rhaegar was to prove victorious in a fairly bloodless coup, what then?  Prominent lords may be uncomfortable seeing a man willing to overthrow his own father sitting the throne.  After all, if he's willing to overthrow his own father, what will he be willing to do with a warden or a lord who displeases him, even temporarily. 

What I'm trying to say is that Rhaegar would have had to carefully laid out his reasons for overthrowing his father, before doing so, in order to keep the bloodshed to a minimum.  Varys would have probably detected such efforts, potentially leading to a worse situation.

A final thought, Aerys' appearance started to deteriorate rapidly as his insanity became more obvious.  Is it possible that Rhaegar, and pretty much everyone else who preferred Rhaegar to Aerys, was hoping that the king would die young, and eliminate the need for a coup?

 

[Alan of Rosby]

6 minutes ago, daccu65 said:

A final thought, Aerys' appearance started to deteriorate rapidly as his insanity became more obvious.  Is it possible that Rhaegar, and pretty much everyone else who preferred Rhaegar to Aerys, was hoping that the king would die young, and eliminate the need for a coup?

I suppose it's understandable, it looks like he was heading that way anyway. But that was a risky game. When he saw that King's Landing was lost he was going to burn the entire city, smallfolk and all, before Jaime stopped him. Aerys' madness was a wildfire that was doing tonnes of damage and no one knew when it was going to burn itself out.

9 minutes ago, daccu65 said:

Say Rhaegar gets the support of the Kingsguard, stalks into the Red Keep and imprisons Aerys.  Word will get out and will Aerys' supporters try to free him?  In other words, could Rhaegar's effort to overthrow his father have triggered an even more horrific civil war than Roberts Rebellion?  Even if Rhaegar was to prove victorious in a fairly bloodless coup, what then?  Prominent lords may be uncomfortable seeing a man willing to overthrow his own father sitting the throne.  After all, if he's willing to overthrow his own father, what will he be willing to do with a warden or a lord who displeases him, even temporarily. 

Good point. Maybe the best time for Rhaegar to stop his father would be when Robert's rebellion started (I mean, the trigger for the rebellion was when Aerys really went beyond the pale). But that was complicated by his elopement with Lyanna Stark. Maybe he thought the "prince that was promised" prophesy was paramount.

[daccu65]

1 minute ago, Alan of Rosby said:

I suppose it's understandable, it looks like he was heading that way anyway. But that was a risky game. When he saw that King's Landing was lost he was going to burn the entire city, smallfolk and all, before Jaime stopped him. Aerys' madness was a wildfire that was doing tonnes of damage and no one knew when it was going to burn itself out.

I was thinking of earlier, during the Harrenhall Tournament.  IIRC, his madness became clear to the commons at that time, as well has his physical deterioration.  At that time, it is very possible that even those who wanted Rhaegar on the throne were probably thinking 'just hang on for a few more years, the old lunatic will be dead, no war, no crisis.'

Once Robert's Rebellion started, it was too late for Rhaegar.

 

[OuttaOldtown]

 

[Alan of Rosby]

9 minutes ago, daccu65 said:

Once Robert's Rebellion started, it was too late for Rhaegar.

 

Yes and no. Robert hated Rhaegar and his love of Lyanna was the main impetus for his rebellion, not Aerys' madness. But otherwise it was the perfect time for Rhaegar to stop his father. Again, the main distraction for Rhaegar was Lyanna and the Azor Ahai prophecy and we don't know how that went down or will go down. 

4 minutes ago, OuttaOldtown said:

 

Lol. I think leadership, aristocracy, royalty etc come with certain level of obligation and resopnsibility. You can't throw up your hands afterwards and say "Well, you know what they say, hindsight is 20/20 and all!" That's risible. Than again, Rheagar couldn't do that because he was bludgeoned to death by Robert.

Axed to death, sorry, got my medieval weapons mixed up.

[Shireen Purratheon]

5 hours ago, daccu65 said:

Say Rhaegar gets the support of the Kingsguard, stalks into the Red Keep and imprisons Aerys.  Word will get out and will Aerys' supporters try to free him?  In other words, could Rhaegar's effort to overthrow his father have triggered an even more horrific civil war than Roberts Rebellion?  Even if Rhaegar was to prove victorious in a fairly bloodless coup, what then?  Prominent lords may be uncomfortable seeing a man willing to overthrow his own father sitting the throne.  After all, if he's willing to overthrow his own father, what will he be willing to do with a warden or a lord who displeases him, even temporarily.

If Rhaegar hadn't done anything in regards to Lyanna, he would have House Martell unequivocally on his side. He probably also would have the Southron Ambitions axis on his side too, or could at least conceivably convince them to support him over Aerys. That gives him Dorne, the North, the Riverlands, and the Vale. Do we have any indication of Robert hating Rhaegar before the Lyanna ordeal? Either way, I can't imagine Robert supporting Aerys, that makes the Stormlands either neutral or pro Rhaegar.

Quellon was neutral in the Rebellion until after the Trident, presumably the Iron Islands don't take a side.

The Reach was loyal to the Crown in the Rebellion. I don't know enough about their loyalties at the time to say whether Mace, Randyll, Mathis, and Paxter would have declared for Rhaegar, stayed true to the Crown, or kept out of it.

Tywin was still hand, but I could easily see him helping Rhaegar if Aerys' appointment of Jaime had still happened.

But as soon as Rhaegar crowns Lyanna, he sends Doran's loyalty into flux, I believe, and presumably the Southron Ambitions axis as well. But if he had made his case to the lords during the Tourney of Harrenhal without coming on to Lyanna, I believe he would have had the necessary support to at least call some sort of Grand Council-esque thing. 

In fact, he could have called it then and there. The three sons and daughter of the Warden of the North were there. The two most powerful lords of the Vale. The brother and sister of the Prince of Dorne were there. The second most powerful lord of the Riverlands was there. Members of House Frey were there. The Warden of the South was there. Robert Baratheon and Jon Connington were there. The Kingsguard, however, were all in town, and that would present complications. But the only region not represented was the Westerlands.

[UnViserion]

On 6/22/2016 at 10:18 AM, Alan of Rosby said:

I know the full details of Robert's Rebellion are not known yet but does anyone know why Rhaegar didn't stand up to Aerys when he fell into insanity?  Rhaegar was universally liked and respected but this shows a major flaw in his character. If I was a character in ASOIAF my opinion of Rhaegar would have been "Well, he was intelligent, handsome, courageous and chivalrous and a highly skilled knight to boot. However, I feel that he evinced a lack of moral fiber by not standing up to Aerys who was tearing his family and the whole kingdom asunder with his madness. In a sense, he was ultimately responsible for the rebellion because he was one of the few people who was capable of stopping Aerys. The Kingsguard swore to obey Aerys until he died so they were honour-bound not to do anything. If Rhaegar locked up his father or killed him it would have been illegal but not dishonourable, Aerys was completely out of control. I think most people would have turned a blind eye."

He couldn't do anything because he was a weak, horny man who put his own wants and desires over the good of the realm he was supposed to one day lead. 

....If we're to believe he did everytihng for love and/or prophecy 

[BeeStark]

isn't it seen as a grave wrong doing to kill the king/become a "king slayer"? I think everyone, including Rhaegar was just waiting for the king to die (hopefully soon) so that Rhaegar can take over. They just didn't anticipate that the King was more mad than they thought and did what he did to the Starks. 

[Alan of Rosby]

8 hours ago, BeeStark said:

isn't it seen as a grave wrong doing to kill the king/become a "king slayer"? I think everyone, including Rhaegar was just waiting for the king to die (hopefully soon) so that Rhaegar can take over. They just didn't anticipate that the King was more mad than they thought and did what he did to the Starks. 

Well he eloped with/abducted Lyanna (depending on who you ask) which precipitated Brandon Stark (the elder) riding to King's Landing in a fury to demand her release. Aerys held him for ransom and Rickard came to King's Landing as well. Aerys burned Rickard and caused Brandon to asphyxiate while trying to save his father and Robert's Rebellion started as a consequence of this.

So it was Rhaegar's actions which started the Rebellion. He better have a damn good excuse for doing this. He seemed to believe in the prophecy of Azor Ahai, the Prince that was Promised and he believed that he would father the Prince but I really hope that he had a really good reason for believing this. 

[Sabhayata]

Well from the limited information we have about Rhaegar I blame him more for running away with Lyanna and not caring about the mess it would create and then not showing up untill the mess got out of hand.

[BeeStark]

^ haha, true, he isn't a horny teenager anymore. Horny maybe, but a teenager? No. If he is obsessed about the prophecy as someone claimed, then from what we know so far, he is to blame for the rebellion. 

[Alan of Rosby]

28 minutes ago, BeeStark said:

^ haha, true, he isn't a horny teenager anymore. Horny maybe, but a teenager? No. If he is obsessed about the prophecy as someone claimed, then from what we know so far, he is to blame for the rebellion. 

Yes. Prophecies in ASOIAF are shaky at the best of times. If his motivation for f***ing off with Lyanna and f***ing her silly was to make Azor Ahai based on some obscure parchment he read than he is beyond reckless, even if he does turn out right and Jon Snow turns out to be The Prince that was Promised he gambled with a lot of innocent lives and there was a lot of collateral damage done in the process.

[Alaynsa Starne]

On 6/22/2016 at 0:23 PM, Alan of Rosby said:

Yes and no. Robert hated Rhaegar and his love of Lyanna was the main impetus for his rebellion, not Aerys' madness.

Considering that war wasn't declared until Aerys demanded Robert's head out of the freaking blue, I'd say it was Aerys' madness that did it. I think because there's so much mythology surrounding the war inside of the text itself, a lot of readers miss that Robert's Rebellion was largely a war of self-defense. Robert and Ned didn't declare as soon as Lyanna was taken, they declared when Aerys demanded their heads from Jon Arryn and Arryn refused. If Lyanna was Robert's motivation for the rebellion, she was only a secondary one. 

And if you remember, Jaime has a flashback of the last time he saw Rhaegar in which Rhaegar expressed regret for the way things had turned out and how he had planned to change things earlier, but something prevented him from doing so. The events at the tourney of Harrenhal suggest that Rhaegar was planning some sort of bloodless revolution.

Essentially, we don't have enough information on the reasons why Rhaegar took Lyanna. Personally, the one that makes the most sense to me is that Rhaegar was either trying to save Lyanna from Aerys (because he discovered she was the Knight of the Laughing Tree) and thus prevent the alliance system that was forming amongst the kingdoms from collapsing -- a move that went disastrously awry for whatever reason -- or Aerys ordered Rhaegar to arrest Lyanna (again, because he discovered she was the Knight of the Laughing Tree) and the king had some leverage over Rhaegar (his wife and children maybe?) that forced Rhaegar's hand.

Basically, from the clues that are laid out in the text, it seems that as Aerys' mental health was rapidly declining Rhaegar was taking steps to peacefully depose him, but his plans were foiled on multiple levels. The first level would be that Rhaegar probably wasn't a raging sociopath and likely had moral compunctions about killing his father -- as has already been noted on this thread. The second level would be the social and political structure of Westeros. Rhaegar can only be so publicly defiant of his father before he begins to delegitimize Targaryen rule as a whole. The Lords need to respect the authority of crown otherwise there won't be a peaceful overthrow, there'll be outright insubordination and secession. The third level would be Varys, who we know was pitting Aerys against Rhaegar, likely because Rhaegar was actually plotting against his father. This only served to fuel Aerys' paranoia, as Jaime notes, which inflamed an already terrible situation. The fourth would be additional actors. If we're going with my above supposition, the issue with the other actors began when Lyanna defended Howland by riding as a mystery knight at the tourney of Harrenhal, thus catching Aerys' attention. It was made more problematic by Rhaegar himself for crowning Lyanna and causing strife between himself, Robert, and Brandon. It spiraled out of control when Brandon rode to KL and demanded for Rhaegar's life. 

In short, I don't think Rhaegar's inability to effectively act against his father in a timely fashion is necessarily a strike against him. At least, not with the information we currently have. In future books, it may turn out that Rhaegar was as insane as his father. Until then, it appears that he was a genuinely decent man limited by extremely unfortunate circumstances and an even more unfortunate parentage. 

[Alan of Rosby]

28 minutes ago, Alaynsa Starne said:

And if you remember, Jaime has a flashback of the last time he saw Rhaegar in which Rhaegar expressed regret for the way things had turned out and how he had planned to change things earlier, but something prevented him from doing so. The events at the tourney of Harrenhal suggest that Rhaegar was planning some sort of bloodless revolution.

Can't remember this for beans. You'd be doing me a solid by linking me the chapter in the ASOIAF wiki. 

[BalerionTheCat]

17 minutes ago, Alan of Rosby said:

Can't remember this for beans. You'd be doing me a solid by linking me the chapter in the ASOIAF wiki. 

Jaime I, AFFC:

Prince Rhaegar shook his head. "My royal sire fears your father more than he does our cousin Robert. He wants you close, so Lord Tywin cannot harm him. I dare not take that crutch away from him at such an hour."
...
Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime’s shoulder. "When this battle’s done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but … well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return."

Eris had many courtiers. Mad or not, he was the King and everyone was bound to obey him. And it was Varys, the Spider who was thwarting Rhaegar maneuvers. Aerys was on the point of replacing Rhaegar by Viserys for his heir.