Anybody else hate Rhaegar?

[Pinkie Baelish]

Seriously, I roll my eyes everytime I read about this one dimensional, emo douche.

All the characters in the book describe him as pretty much the greatest thing since sliced bread, and it's really tiresome in a series which is otherwise filled with flawed and complex characters.

And don't even get me started on him as a romantic figure. The image of him probably brushing away his fringe while playing a sad song on the harp is one of the most laughably cliche things in the entire series, and is really something you would expect in some teenage girl's shitty fan fiction. If Darkstar is GRRM's most cliched villain, Rhaegar is his most cliched hero.

At the end of the day, no matter how much people seem to swoon at his feet, be it the characters or fellow readers, to me, he'll always be the goof that ran off with another man's betrothed despite being married and helped trigger a civil war. Oh, and leaving his wife and kids WITH HIS BATSHIT INSANE DAD at King's Landing.

Thoughts?

[Ser Duncan of Flea Bottom]

Seriously, I roll my eyes everytime I read about this one dimensional, emo douche.

All the characters in the book describe him as pretty much the greatest thing since sliced bread, and it's really tiresome in a series which is otherwise filled with flawed and complex characters.

And don't even get me started on him as a romantic figure. The image of him probably brushing away his fringe while playing a sad song on the harp is one of the most laughably cliche things in the entire series, and is really something you would expect in some teenage girl's shitty fan fiction. If Darkstar is GRRM's most cliched villain, Rhaegar is his most cliched hero.

At the end of the day, no matter how much people seem to swoon at his feet, be it the characters or fellow readers, to me, he'll always be the goof that ran off with another man's betrothed despite being married and helped trigger a civil war. Oh, and leaving his wife and kids WITH HIS BATSHIT INSANE DAD at King's Landing.

Thoughts?

How could we hate someone we didn't know much about?

His father was the king, so he needed to obey him, mad king ot not he was the king. He didn't leave them there, he was at the Trident taking a hammer in the chest from Bob

And we didn't know if he raped Lyanna, to me, Lyanna loved him and he loved her, it was not rape, Lyanna seems to have never loved Bob, she knows he was really promiscuous

About Summerhall sadness and joy, a lot of crazu stuff happened there, we don't know how much he was affected by it, part of his family died there

[James Arryn]

Are you kidding? Almost everyone...and only tempered by the minor problem of being the only significant character in Westeros whom virtually everyone, enemy and ally alike, speak of with universal admiration and respect.

This he's an emo ponce stuff is as old as it is without foundation in text.

[blackwing]

I did not get the impression from the books that Raegar was the perfect hero. He was a skilled warrior, but preferred playing the harp. He was melancholic and fancied romance. He put desperate romance above anything else, thereby caused a war which he lost and which saw the dynasty of his family destroyed. I don't see a perfect, cliché prince charming there.

[Xray the Enforcer]

[mod] We came to the conclusion a few months ago that both "Appreciation" threads and "Hate" threads do not foster good discussion. Therefore, topic is closed. Thank you. [/mod]