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Rhaegar's final words


Danelle

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I think it's most probable that he said Lyanna rather than Visenya or any other name for that matter.

Yeah, he was obsessed with the three dragon heads, but Lyanna was still the woman he loved.

I am still not convicned of this perfect romantic attatchment between L + R. What are you using as refferance?

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Well, this is interesting. Which part of the Lyanna and Rhaegar love story is cliché? How often do princes cheat on their wives and run off with another woman to secretly engage in polygamy in order to satisfy the crazy?

I've read a fair few romance novels through the years, but this clichéd trends of cheating princes somewhat obsessed with prophecies have escaped me. Care to give some recommendations for where they can be found?

Maybe cliché is the wrong word, but R+L theory seems to perfectly fit with the chivalry stories of the old, or even the plot of some romantic stories of nowadays. A girl forced into marriage with someone she doesn't love. She runs away with her one true love, a beautiful prince admired by everybody who also is a wonderful singer . A war begins because of that. They both died in the end, him whispering her name while dying and her giving birth to the fruit of their love, The theory is just too perfect. Way romantic. The clues are too obvious. I don't think Martin would do that (or at least I hope not). The only way I see for this romance to work is to show both Rhaegar and Lyanna under not so sympathetic lights in the end.

Because If they did that, what they did was very, very, selfish, which doesn't fit either with what was shown of Rhaegar and Lyanna in the books (a view which may be distorted by the people who loved them ). Lyanna, even though she was a teenager, seems responsible, thoughtful and sensitive. I don't think she would willingly run away with a married man father of two children leaving her family to deal with the terrible implications of such act. Rhaegar is more of a mystery to me. He seemed to have been a decent and honourable man, why he would run away with a girl, abandoning his wife and children, and knowing fully well the political consequences of that? The only way I see it working is if both (especially Rhaegar, since Lyanna is a teen), are not the decent people we thought they were. And no "great love story" would change that much. This affair sounds to me like Lancelot and Guinevere, like the songs Sansa used to love. And we know fully well Westero isn't like Sansa's songs.

Maybe Robert vision's of Rhaegar may be colored by hate or maybe not. I don't discount Robert's view of him or the theory that he kidnapped and raped Lyanna, he may have been one of the few (or the only one) who saw Rhaegar's true face. Who knows?

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Maybe cliché is the wrong word, but R+L theory seems to perfectly fit with the chivalry stories of the old, or even the plot of some romantic stories of nowadays. A girl forced into marriage with someone she doesn't love. She runs away with her one true love, a beautiful prince admired by everybody who also is a wonderful singer . A war begins because of that. They both died in the end, him whispering her name while dying and her giving birth to the fruit of their love, The theory is just too perfect. Way romantic. The clues are too obvious. I don't think Martin would do that (or at least I hope not). The only way I see for this romance to work is to show both Rhaegar and Lyanna under not so sympathetic lights in the end.

Because If they did that, what they did was very, very, selfish, which doesn't fit either with what was shown of Rhaegar and Lyanna in the books (a view which may be distorted by the people who loved them ). Lyanna, even though she was a teenager, seems responsible, thoughtful and sensitive. I don't think she would willingly run away with a married man father of two children leaving her family to deal with the terrible implications of such act? Rhaegar is more of a mystery to me. He seemed to have been a decent and honourable man, why he would run away with a girl, abandoning his wife and children, and knowing fully well the political consequences of that? The only way I see it working is if both (especially Rhaegar, since Lyanna is a teen), are not the decent people we thought they were. And no "great love story" would change that much. This affair sounds to me like Lancelot and Guinevere, like the songs Sansa used to love. And we know fully well Westero isn't like Sansa's songs.

Maybe Robert vision's of Rhaegar maybe be colored by hate or maybe not. I don't discount Robert's view of him or the theory that he kidnapped and raped Lyanna, he may have been one of the few (or the only one) who saw Rhaegar's true face. Who knows?

I did a thread questioning this: http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/73963-crackpot-what-if-rhaegar-is-the-embodiment-of-all-that-is-evil/#entry3611749

I just don't see how this love story works....

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Thanks for the topic.

I actually think R+L is a cute theory, but not in the world of Westeros (or in the real world).

What if it was not a love story? What if he was just trying to fulfill a prophecy? What if what he really did was really bad, but he thought it was for the greater good?

Anyway, I believe in R+L=J based on "physical evidence", whether they were truly in love or not is a bit irrelevant to me. But heck, maybe they really were in love. Martin is realistic, and "cliches" as you call them sometimes happen in real life.

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What if it was not a love story? What if he was just trying to fulfill a prophecy? What if what he really did was really bad, but he thought it was for the greater good?

Anyway, I believe in R+L=J based on "physical evidence", whether they were truly in love or not is a bit irrelevant to me. But heck, maybe they really were in love. Martin is realistic, and "cliches" as you call them sometimes happen in real life.

I used the "love" angle because most people believe in it. But among all, the prophecy motivation for Rhaegar is the most believable for me. We just need to know Lyanna's role in the story (I believe she was kidnapped). The love story maybe true also, I didn't rule out. It's just a bit simplistic.

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I find it kind of ironic and sad that not one of the posts here even entertain the possibility that the woman's name he said might be that of his wife: Elia.

As in the one he married and had two kids with? The one he probably horribly embarassed and hurt with the whole Lyanna business? Not to mention the one whose death, and the death of whose child(ren), he remotely caused by starting the whole bloody mess with Miss Blue Winter Roses?

Geez! Even Lollys got a mention for pete's sake! :shocked:

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