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Blue Winter Roses


Turkish Delight

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Quick question:

So did Rhaegar literally give Lyanna blue winter roses at Harrenhal or was this the product of milk of the poppy in Ned's memory? We're told that Lyanna died with roses in her hand, which many interpret to be her champion's crown, but is this simply a metaphor?

I'm really confused about this myself, as I've always wondered how Rhaegar managed to get blue winter roses all the way to Harrenhal to give to Lyanna. Did he and Lyanna meet long before the tourney? Was it a regular champion's crown that has come to resemble something symbolic of Lyanna and her child in Ned's dreams?

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In "The World..." there's a mention of the blue roses in the text proper, and an illustration titled "Prince Rhaegar presenting the crown of winter roses to Lyanna Stark". So they were not a figment of Ned's imagination.

I think it wasn't up to the champion, but to the sponsor of the tourney (so, Lord Whent) to provide the crown for the Queen of Love and Beauty.

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4 minutes ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

In "The World..." there's a mention of the blue roses in the text proper, and an illustration titled "Prince Rhaegar presenting the crown of winter roses to Lyanna Stark". So they were not a figment of Ned's imagination.

I think it wasn't up to the champion, but to the sponsor of the tourney (so, Lord Whent) to provide the crown for the Queen of Love and Beauty.

I spaced about that picture. Good point. Perhaps the winter roses were a cosmic coincidence? Lord When spared no expense with the tourney; I suppose it's possible that bringing flowers all the way from the North could have been to show off the wealth of Harrenhal and House Whent.

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Just now, Turkish Delight said:

I spaced about that picture. Good point. Perhaps the winter roses were a cosmic coincidence? Lord When spared no expense with the tourney; I suppose it's possible that bringing flowers all the way from the North could have been to show off the wealth of Harrenhal and House Whent.

 

They could be a coincidence... or they might have been the last detail that made Rhaegar go through with his desire to crown Lyanna instead of Elia....would be interesting, no?

 

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4 minutes ago, Turkish Delight said:

I spaced about that picture. Good point. Perhaps the winter roses were a cosmic coincidence? Lord When spared no expense with the tourney; I suppose it's possible that bringing flowers all the way from the North could have been to show off the wealth of Harrenhal and House Whent.

 

2 minutes ago, Orphalesion said:

 

They could be a coincidence... or they might have been the last detail that made Rhaegar go through with his desire to crown Lyanna instead of Elia....would be interesting, no?

 

I think it was the "no more babies" thing that made him pass by Elia. She had become obsolete, so he looked for someone else to fulfill his apocalyptic vision with.

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Just now, tugela said:

 

I think it was the "no more babies" thing that made him pass by Elia. She had become obsolete, so he looked for someone else to fulfill his apocalyptic vision with.

Yeah of course, but perhaps he interpreted the roses as some sign to choose the Stark girl to do that. "Blue Winter Roses! Of course! I need a Blue Winter Rose! Lyanna Stark! With her I shall fulfill the Song of Ice and Fire!"

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11 minutes ago, tugela said:

 

I think it was the "no more babies" thing that made him pass by Elia. She had become obsolete, so he looked for someone else to fulfill his apocalyptic vision with.

This is just plain wrong. Elia gave birth to Aegon AFTER Harrenhal.

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17 minutes ago, Ser Leftwich said:

This is just plain wrong. Elia gave birth to Aegon AFTER Harrenhal.

Elia was fragile, so there was no expectation of more kids. Clearly Rhaegar was looking for wife #2, because Elia could not produce. Aegon would have been a surprise, and with the finality of future pregnancies confirmed after that, Rhaegar immediately took off the kidnap Lyanna.

The guy is a self-centered scumbag.

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29 minutes ago, tugela said:

Elia was fragile, so there was no expectation of more kids. Clearly Rhaegar was looking for wife #2, because Elia could not produce. Aegon would have been a surprise, and with the finality of future pregnancies confirmed after that, Rhaegar immediately took off the kidnap Lyanna.

The guy is a self-centered scumbag.

If there was no expectation of another child, they would not have had sex. This argument holds no water. All speculation.

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25 minutes ago, Ser Leftwich said:

If there was no expectation of another child, they would not have had sex. This argument holds no water. All speculation.

Rhaegar would have done whatever he pleased.

We know this because Robert told Ned that Rhaegar raped Lyanna hundreds of times (presumably to ensure that she got pregnant). He would have been told this at the battle of the Trident by Rhaegar himself when they were in single combat. They both knew why they were there and would have been trading insults and taunts while fighting. Rhaegar knew that telling Robert this would be an affront to his honor and enrage him, presumably so that Robert would make a rash mistake. He probably laughed and joked about what he had all done to her. Rhaegar was a better warrior than Robert, but Robert won, probably due to a lucky blow while enraged. This is why all of that happened.

Poor Lyanna. She would have been chained up in this tower being raped multiple times a day by Rhaegar until she got pregnant, and then was forced to carry his child, watched over by the kings guard to ensure that she did not escape her captivity. But she was a good woman, and did not blame her child for his fathers evil nature. No wonder her brother and father were so outraged - they knew what kind of man Rhaegar really was.

And now he is the Night King, continuing his evil quest. Except by a strange twist of fate, his own son will put him down.

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Let me make sure I'm getting this straight before weighing, because I want to make sure that I respect everyone's arguments and represent them correctly. For those of you who believe that Rhaegar absconded with Lyanna because of prophecy and prophecy alone, the evidence to support the argument is as follows:

  1. According to Selmy, Rhaegar was bookish and shied away from martial pursuits until he read something that changed him profoundly in one of his scrolls. The presumption is that this had to do with the prophecy regarding the Long Night and the return of Azor Ahai, correct? Please do correct me if I'm wrong - like I said, I want to portray all arguments correctly and give them the respect they deserve.
  2. In the House of the Undying, Rhaegar is overheard saying that little Aegon is the chosen one and that "there must be one more." Proponents of the prophecy explanation proffer that this means Rhaegar wanted a third child to fulfill his notion of destiny.
  3. Rhaegar abducts/runs off with Lyanna after finding out that Elia cannot bear another child.

This is the gist of the argument, right? I wouldn't want to leave anything out or speak for anyone so please offer any feedback you want or further evidence that you've found in the text.

 

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2 hours ago, Turkish Delight said:

Quick question:

So did Rhaegar literally give Lyanna blue winter roses at Harrenhal or was this the product of milk of the poppy in Ned's memory? We're told that Lyanna died with roses in her hand, which many interpret to be her champion's crown, but is this simply a metaphor?

I'm really confused about this myself, as I've always wondered how Rhaegar managed to get blue winter roses all the way to Harrenhal to give to Lyanna. Did he and Lyanna meet long before the tourney? Was it a regular champion's crown that has come to resemble something symbolic of Lyanna and her child in Ned's dreams?

Part of the secrets of the blue roses is within the flowers themselves. They only grow in warmer climates and that is why they have to be specially cultivated in the glass gardens at Winterfell where it is heated by the hot springs underneath. Curiously, in our world we don't have blue roses. The closest we can get to them is by splicing together some genes and making one... and a blue rose is a symbol for "blue blood", or, royalty.

It's possible that Harrenhal is just south enough that the blue rose could grow in the gardens, if it is warm enough. There are lots of the old god symbolism around Harrenhal, such as the god's eye and the 20 acres of weirwood trees. Later in AFFC and ADWD, Jon thinks of Ghost and he being the same, and that Ghost if of the old gods... therefore Jon is too.

There are at least five references of a crown of love and beauty being given to Lyanna at Harrenhal, so we do know that specific event happened.

As for a witness other than Ned, the World book makes two references to the color and species of the flowers as being "Blue roses": "And when the triumphant Prince of Dragonstone named Lyanna Stark, daughter of the Lord of Winterfell, the queen of love and beauty, *placing a garland of blue roses in her lap with the tip of his lance*, the lickspittle lords gathered around the king declared that further proof of his perfidy." (*By the way, if this line isn't sexual innuendo, then I don't know what is*)

There is some talk, and I kinda agree, that the flowers that slip from Lyanna's hands on her deathbed are the ones from the crown of love and beauty. They are wilted by this point. We have this is Game, Eddard 1: "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."

*dead and *black, hmmmm, kinda sounds like Jon right now at the end of Dance. A man who had taken the black and is now "dead".

The tale of Bale the Bard is the tale of Lyanna and Rhaegar and Jon. The symbolism in the story is hard to miss and it's a really well written little tale. Lots of information in just a few lines. Rhaegar is somewhat of a singer himself, and Lyanna is the rare flower of the north. Up to this point in Westeros history, there has not been a union or birth from the ice of the Starks and the fire of the Targaryens. Jon is that song.

A Clash of Kings - Jon VI

"North or south, singers always find a ready welcome, so Bael ate at Lord Stark's own table, and played for the lord in his high seat until half the night was gone. The old songs he played, and new ones he'd made himself, and he played and sang so well that when he was done, the lord offered to let him name his own reward. 'All I ask is a flower,' Bael answered, 'the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o' Winterfell.'"
 
"Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. So the Stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o' the winter roses be plucked for the singer's payment. And so it was done. But when morning come, the singer had vanished . . . and so had Lord Brandon's maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain."
 
Jon had never heard this tale before. "Which Brandon was this supposed to be? Brandon the Builder lived in the Age of Heroes, thousands of years before Bael. There was Brandon the Burner and his father Brandon the Shipwright, but—"
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1 hour ago, tugela said:

Rhaegar would have done whatever he pleased.

We know this because Robert told Ned that Rhaegar raped Lyanna hundreds of times (presumably to ensure that she got pregnant). He would have been told this at the battle of the Trident by Rhaegar himself when they were in single combat. They both knew why they were there and would have been trading insults and taunts while fighting. Rhaegar knew that telling Robert this would be an affront to his honor and enrage him, presumably so that Robert would make a rash mistake. He probably laughed and joked about what he had all done to her. Rhaegar was a better warrior than Robert, but Robert won, probably due to a lucky blow while enraged. This is why all of that happened.

Poor Lyanna. She would have been chained up in this tower being raped multiple times a day by Rhaegar until she got pregnant, and then was forced to carry his child, watched over by the kings guard to ensure that she did not escape her captivity. But she was a good woman, and did not blame her child for his fathers evil nature. No wonder her brother and father were so outraged - they knew what kind of man Rhaegar really was.

And now he is the Night King, continuing his evil quest. Except by a strange twist of fate, his own son will put him down.

Can you provide any text evidence that this is true, or that is happened to the level you describe. Remember, Robert was angry and angry people tend to over exaggerate about their enemies in times of war and loss.

Ned was the one actually there with a dying Lyanna. Ned never has a bad thought or memory of Rhaegar and Lyanna together... and we have the benefit of being in his thoughts the whole time.

If anything, Ned thinks more positively of Rhaegar when it came to the "honor" of women than he thinks of his best friend and King, Robert.

A Game of Thrones - Eddard IX

Littlefinger shook the rain from his hair and laughed. "Now I see. Lord Arryn learned that His Grace had filled the bellies of some whores and fishwives, and for that he had to be silenced. Small wonder. Allow a man like that to live, and next he's like to blurt out that the sun rises in the east."
 
There was no answer Ned Stark could give to that but a frown. For the first time in years, he found himself remembering Rhaegar Targaryen. He wondered if Rhaegar had frequented brothels; somehow he thought not.
 
__________
And at one point, Ned is almost ready to tell Robert the truth of Lyanna and Rhaegar. Robert says they can talk "tomorrow", but that tomorrow never comes because Robert dies.

A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

Robert reached for the flagon and refilled his cup. "You see what she does to me, Ned." The king seated himself, cradling his wine cup. "My loving wife. The mother of my children." The rage was gone from him now; in his eyes Ned saw something sad and scared. "I should not have hit her. That was not … that was not kingly." He stared down at his hands, as if he did not quite know what they were. "I was always strong … no one could stand before me, no one. How do you fight someone if you can't hit them?" Confused, the king shook his head. "Rhaegar … Rhaegar won, damn him. I killed him, Ned, I drove the spike right through that black armor into his black heart, and he died at my feet. They made up songs about it. Yet somehow he still won. He has Lyanna now, and I have her." The king drained his cup.
 
"Your Grace," Ned Stark said, "we must talk …"
 
Robert pressed his fingertips against his temples. "I am sick unto death of talk. On the morrow I'm going to the kingswood to hunt. Whatever you have to say can wait until I return."
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9 hours ago, Turkish Delight said:

Quick question:

So did Rhaegar literally give Lyanna blue winter roses at Harrenhal or was this the product of milk of the poppy in Ned's memory? We're told that Lyanna died with roses in her hand, which many interpret to be her champion's crown, but is this simply a metaphor?

You're confusing the passages. The memory of the crowning was not in a poppy-induced state, it was during Ned's imprisonment in the Black Cells and it was very vivid. The dream has a storm of blue rose petals across the sky which apparently is not what happened, but it is still an old dream, i.e. Ned had had dreams with similar content before, so the effect of fever and poppy didn't lead to something wildly incoherent.

6 hours ago, tugela said:

Rhaegar would have done whatever he pleased.

Which is why he is called dutiful, right?

6 hours ago, tugela said:

We know this because Robert told Ned that Rhaegar raped Lyanna hundreds of times (presumably to ensure that she got pregnant).

Robert wasn't there.

6 hours ago, tugela said:

He would have been told this at the battle of the Trident by Rhaegar himself when they were in single combat. They both knew why they were there and would have been trading insults and taunts while fighting. Rhaegar knew that telling Robert this would be an affront to his honor and enrage him, presumably so that Robert would make a rash mistake. He probably laughed and joked about what he had all done to her. Rhaegar was a better warrior than Robert, but Robert won, probably due to a lucky blow while enraged. This is why all of that happened.

Fanfiction, and AU on top of that. No description of Rhaegar that we have fits with such behaviour.

6 hours ago, tugela said:

Poor Lyanna. She would have been chained up in this tower being raped multiple times a day by Rhaegar until she got pregnant, and then was forced to carry his child, watched over by the kings guard to ensure that she did not escape her captivity. But she was a good woman, and did not blame her child for his fathers evil nature.

Fanfiction again.

6 hours ago, tugela said:

No wonder her brother and father were so outraged - they knew what kind of man Rhaegar really was.

Funny that the guys who lived up North knew Rhaegar better than those who had personal contact with him.

Besides, I don't recall a single bit mentioning Rickard's outrage. We do have Brandon's outrage - even over the crowning, which tells more about Brandon's character than knowledge of Rhaegar.

And then we have Ned, who comes to the conclusion that Robert turned out a scumbag fathering bastards left and right and not caring about the kids or their mothers, and that Rhaegar was the better man in this respect. Really, the supposed rape victim's brother has the weirdest thoughts about the rapist.

 

6 hours ago, tugela said:

And now he is the Night King, continuing his evil quest. Except by a strange twist of fate, his own son will put him down.

Who, the guy who was cremated? Now, that's a trick we haven't seen yet.

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6 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Can you provide any text evidence that this is true, or that is happened to the level you describe. Remember, Robert was angry and angry people tend to over exaggerate about their enemies in times of war and loss.

Ned was the one actually there with a dying Lyanna. Ned never has a bad thought or memory of Rhaegar and Lyanna together... and we have the benefit of being in his thoughts the whole time.

If anything, Ned thinks more positively of Rhaegar when it came to the "honor" of women than he thinks of his best friend and King, Robert.

Robert had to have some reason for saying what he did, and it almost certainly would have been based on what the two men would have been saying to each other when meeting on the field. You might debate if Rhaegar really did rape Lyanna all those times, or if he was just saying so to goad Robert into being stupid. But I would say we can be pretty sure that he told Robert that.

Ned is a sweet gullible fool who believes honor is everything and thinks the best of people. He might only know Rhaegar's image, not the real man, so doesn't believe Robert. Lyanna was dieing when he found her in the tower, it is not as though she is going to start chatting about being raped. Her main concern would be for the welfare of her child, and that he be protected (assuming she had a child). And then Ned apparently passed out or something, so he doesn't know what happened next. So I would say that Ned may not have an entirely accurate image of Rhaegar. In fact, his entire account of the tower is kind of fishy.

Incidentally, Lyanna died from fever.

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9 hours ago, Ser Leftwich said:

If there was no expectation of another child, they would not have had sex. This argument holds no water. All speculation.

Umm....why not? Do you think that people only have sex for the sole purpose of producing children?

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7 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

 

There is some talk, and I kinda agree, that the flowers that slip from Lyanna's hands on her deathbed are the ones from the crown of love and beauty. They are wilted by this point. We have this is Game, Eddard 1: "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."

*dead and *black, hmmmm, kinda sounds like Jon right now at the end of Dance. A man who had taken the black and is now "dead".

The tale of Bale the Bard is the tale of Lyanna and Rhaegar and Jon. The symbolism in the story is hard to miss and it's a really well written little tale. Lots of information in just a few lines. Rhaegar is somewhat of a singer himself, and Lyanna is the rare flower of the north. Up to this point in Westeros history, there has not been a union or birth from the ice of the Starks and the fire of the Targaryens. Jon is that song.

 

There was something strange going on at the tower, it just smacks of some sort of ritual.

It is true, the tale of Bale the Bard is weirdly similar to the whole Lyanna and Rhaegar story. Perhaps they may have been re-enacting the story for some reason.

If it was entirely replicated, then Lyanna and Rhaegar may still be hiding in the crypt now.

The other possibility is that both of them are buried there.

It is also weird that Mance Rayder spent a lot of time down in the crypt when he was at Winterfell. The tale could also refer to him, since Bale later became the king beyond the wall. And there is that odd similarity of names: Prince Rhaegar - Mance Rayder, plus they both like playing harps.

There is definitely something fishy going on.

Rhaegar and Lyanna may not be dead at all, just hiding. The "Rhaegar" who died at the Trident may be someone under a ruby glamor spell (we know that rubies are used for this purpose, and we know that "Rhaegar" was wearing a bunch of rubies at the Trident). Likewise "Mance Rayder" may be glamored as well, so no one recognizes him as Rhaegar.

When Ned goes down to the crypts periodically to take flowers to Lyanna's grave (since she like flowers), he may really have been taking provisions down. And Mance may have gone there looking to find Lyanna.

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7 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

 

Robert reached for the flagon and refilled his cup. "You see what she does to me, Ned." The king seated himself, cradling his wine cup. "My loving wife. The mother of my children." The rage was gone from him now; in his eyes Ned saw something sad and scared. "I should not have hit her. That was not … that was not kingly." He stared down at his hands, as if he did not quite know what they were. "I was always strong … no one could stand before me, no one. How do you fight someone if you can't hit them?" Confused, the king shook his head. "Rhaegar … Rhaegar won, damn him. I killed him, Ned, I drove the spike right through that black armor into his black heart, and he died at my feet. They made up songs about it. Yet somehow he still won. He has Lyanna now, and I have her." The king drained his cup.
 
"Your Grace," Ned Stark said, "we must talk …"
 
Robert pressed his fingertips against his temples. "I am sick unto death of talk. On the morrow I'm going to the kingswood to hunt. Whatever you have to say can wait until I return."

He did not want to talk to Robert about Lyanna, he wanted to talk to Robert about his "discovery" that Robert's three "trueborn" children likely were not really his. That is what he was doing all his research on.

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29 minutes ago, tugela said:

Robert had to have some reason for saying what he did, and it almost certainly would have been based on what the two men would have been saying to each other when meeting on the field. You might debate if Rhaegar really did rape Lyanna all those times, or if he was just saying so to goad Robert into being stupid. But I would say we can be pretty sure that he told Robert that.

We can be pretty sure that it was Robert's own conclusion. A man appreciated his betrothed's beauty and then made off with her, supposedly against her will - what other conclusion could there possibly be for Robert? Should he admit to himself that Lyanna might have reciprocated Rhaegar's feelings? Robert, who is so apt at not seeing things he doesn't want to?

 

29 minutes ago, tugela said:

Ned is a sweet gullible fool who believes honor is everything and thinks the best of people. He might only know Rhaegar's image, not the real man, so doesn't believe Robert.

Provided that the said dialogue ever happened.

29 minutes ago, tugela said:

Lyanna was dieing when he found her in the tower, it is not as though she is going to start chatting about being raped.

You must have access to some extra documents that you know how much time Ned spent with Lyanna and what they talked about.

29 minutes ago, tugela said:

Her main concern would be for the welfare of her child, and that he be protected (assuming she had a child). And then Ned apparently passed out or something, so he doesn't know what happened next.

Ned passed out after Lyanna died.

29 minutes ago, tugela said:

So I would say that Ned may not have an entirely accurate image of Rhaegar. In fact, his entire account of the tower is kind of fishy.

Which account? The one about his sister dying in a bed of blood while holding onto dried roses (now, how she might have gotten them and why were they so dear to her?) Or that he had a fight with the KG who wouldn't stand down because they claimed they had some superimportant duty there? That's not just one account but several interspersed through the text, and none of them contradicting the other. I don't see what's fishy there.

29 minutes ago, tugela said:

Incidentally, Lyanna died from fever.

 

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1 hour ago, Ygrain said:

Which is why he is called dutiful, right?

Robert wasn't there.

Fanfiction, and AU on top of that. No description of Rhaegar that we have fits with such behaviour.

Fanfiction again.

Funny that the guys who lived up North knew Rhaegar better than those who had personal contact with him.

Besides, I don't recall a single bit mentioning Rickard's outrage. We do have Brandon's outrage - even over the crowning, which tells more about Brandon's character than knowledge of Rhaegar.

And then we have Ned, who comes to the conclusion that Robert turned out a scumbag fathering bastards left and right and not caring about the kids or their mothers, and that Rhaegar was the better man in this respect. Really, the supposed rape victim's brother has the weirdest thoughts about the rapist.

 

Who, the guy who was cremated? Now, that's a trick we haven't seen yet.

Rhaegar was like any prince and celebrity in an absolute monarchy. You don't speak ill of them. He was a sociopath that was adept at presenting an image to the world, but the real Rhaegar was quite different. That comes across pretty clearly in most accounts of him, people did not really know what he was about or why he was doing the things he did. He was a man of mystery.

The claim of Lyanna being raped hundreds of times comes from Robert, it is not fan fiction. As I pointed out, the mechanism for Robert thinking that would have been their single combat encounter at the Trident. Robert had access to a primsry source, and that should not be so readily discounted.

Ned may not have known about the rape, since that is not something Lyanna would have talked about when he found her on her deathbed about to die. He just had Roberts version, and the public image of Rhaegar (he did not know the man personally) to base his opinion on.

There no mention of what happened to Rhaegar's body in the book. Martin suggested that the body was cremated many years ago, but until it is in print in the books we don't know. Targaryens cremated their dead, so it isn't clear if he was talking about their general practice or what specifically happened.

There is a mechanism under which people might believe that Rhaegar was killed at the Trident, and that is through rubies, which are mentioned many, many times in the accounts of the battle. Rubies are used to glamor people so they look like someone else, and Rhaegar at the Trident had a large number of them on his breastplate. So it may not have been Rhaegar at all. The real Rhaegar may have gone somewhere else, say, for example, beyond the wall, where he continued his pursuit of prophecy under an assumed identity.

For all we know, fake Rhaegar's body was burned at the Trident, but real Rhaegar might still be out there.

There is certainly an argument to be made that such a scenario might fit the story reasonably well.

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