Who did lyanna stark really love?

[LordStoneheart]

snip

One other person, Cersei. Not everyone.

Doubting the HotU vision is beyond stupid. Not even bothering with your reasons why it can't be true, since GRRM has both put the vision in the books with no real reason to doubt it and the woiaf app has confirmed Rhaegar died with her name on his lips (that's what I was actually referring to.) Also, nobody but Bran, a seven year old, and Robert, a man with the mind of a preteen, thinks Lyanna was kidnapped.

[markg171]

One other person, Cersei. Not everyone.

Doubting the HotU vision is beyond stupid. Not even bothering with your reasons why it can't be true, since GRRM has both put the vision in the books with no real reason to doubt it and the woiaf app has confirmed Rhaegar died with her name on his lips (that's what I was actually referring to.)

No, believing a vision because it fits your theory, over believing the factual, historical details of the battle that completely contradict it is stupid. We literally know how the battle happened, and it did not go the way that the vision says it did. The characters in the books say the battle was fought on horseback, and even Martin's favourite image made of the fight has them on horseback. Yet the vision has Rhaegar standing in the stream. So the vision is not a real depiction of the events, otherwise it wouldn't have gotten the details wrong. I can't believe this is even arguable.

The vision is symbolic. It is not factual. Wanna know how I know it's not factual? Other than of course because of the details I already gave? Because other parts of the visions are wrong too.

Finally a great pair of bronze doors appeared to her left, grander than the rest. They swung open as she neared, and she had to stop and look. Beyond loomed a cavernous stone hall, the largest she had ever seen. The skulls of dead dragons looked down from its walls. Upon a towering barbed throne sat an old man in rich robes, an old man with dark eyes and long silver-grey hair. “Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat,” he said to a man below him. “Let him be the king of ashes.” Drogon shrieked, his claws digging through silk and skin, but the king on his throne never heard, and Dany moved on.

“My Sworn Brothers were all away, you see, but Aerys liked to keep me close. I was my father’s son, so he did not trust me. He wanted me where Varys could watch me, day and night. So I heard it all.” He remembered how Rossart’s eyes would shine when he unrolled his maps to show where the substance must be placed. Garigus and Belis were the same. “Rhaegar met Robert on the Trident, and you know what happened there. When the word reached court, Aerys packed the queen off to Dragonstone with Prince Viserys. Princess Elia would have gone as well, but he forbade it. Somehow he had gotten it in his head that Prince Lewyn must have betrayed Rhaegar on the Trident, but he thought he could keep Dorne loyal so long as he kept Elia and Aegon by his side. The traitors want my city, I heard him tell Rossart, but I’ll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat. The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them. Aerys meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to die. Like Aerion Brightfire before him, Aerys thought the fire would transform him... that he would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash.

By the end the Mad King had become so fearful that he would allow no blade in his presence, save for the swords his Kingsguard wore. His beard was matted and unwashed, his hair a silver-gold tangle that reached his waist, his fingernails cracked yellow claws nine inches long. Yet still the blades tormented him, the ones he could never escape, the blades of the Iron Throne. His arms and legs were always covered with scabs and half-healed cuts.

The vision in the House of the Undying gets the age of Aerys wrong, the words said by Aerys wrong, and his hair colour wrong. But yup, let's just believe that these visions are factual, when they keep getting details wrong. Maybe it's because they're not what really happened?

Oh, and the app confirmed the name in the vision. Not that it really happened. There is a difference.

Also, nobody but Bran, a seven year old, and Robert, a man with the mind of a preteen, thinks Lyanna was kidnapped.

That's not true at all.

The king touched her cheek, his fingers brushing across the rough stone as gently as if it were living flesh. “I vowed to kill Rhaegar for what he did to her.”

Robert vowed he would kill Rhaegar after he heard what had been done to her. He is not the one who started the "Lyanna was kidnapped/raped" story. To have made a vow to kill Rhaegar, this vow had to have been made before he met Rhaegar at the Trident, and before Ned came back from the TOJ as both events occurred after Robert killed Rhaegar. So Robert cannot be the only to believe that story, nor is it something he invented as someone told him the news that Rhaegar had kidnapped Lyanna.

[LordStoneheart]

What are these visions from a meta perspective but the author showing us the trail of breadcrumbs? You are over thinking the battle and undermining what might be one of the most important chapters in the books.

No one but Bran and Robert has connected Rhaegar with kidnapping and raping Lyanna. Just because Robert thinks it doesn't mean that's the consensus among the populous, especially when most other characters and even supernatural forces suggest otherwise.

[The Wolves]

That was 1 time, and that was while Robert was wounded, cut off from his forces, with an army going door to door looking for him. There was no hope in sight. And I already addressed this.

Outside of Stoney Sept, there is no instance of Robert ever cheating on Lyanna. It took extreme circumstances.

Robert thought Lyanna was being raped, suffering at Rhaegar's hands. Tell me how does someone feck his way through a brothel while the woman he proclaims to love is suffering through multiple rape?

[Berkilak]

I wouldn't be surprised if Lyanna loved Rhaegar at first, but quickly became a prisoner once the rebellion started. She doesn't seem the type that would ignore her brother and father dying for her, and furthermore staying by the side of the rest of her family's enemy. My guess is she realized how naive her whirlwind romance was with Rhaegar, asked to leave... and he had other plans. Furthermore, I don't see her as a willing bedmate of Rhaegar's after these events.

[The Wolves]

I wouldn't be surprised if Lyanna loved Rhaegar at first, but quickly became a prisoner once the rebellion started. She doesn't seem the type that would ignore her brother and father dying for her, and furthermore staying by the side of the rest of her family's enemy. My guess is she realized how naive her whirlwind romance was with Rhaegar, asked to leave... and he had other plans. Furthermore, I don't see her as a willing bedmate of Rhaegar's after these events.

Or she could have had a bedridden pregnancy and the war was already in full swing her moving about while pregnant and family fighting the Royal family could have been dangerous.

Not that I'm ruling out the idea that she could have been a prisoner 3 Knights were guarding her they were considered the best in the land it's possible.

[markg171]

Robert thought Lyanna was being raped, suffering at Rhaegar's hands. Tell me how does someone feck his way through a brothel while the woman he proclaims to love is suffering through multiple rape?

Because you think you're going to die in an hour and there's nothing you can do about her being raped anymore?

Or she could have had a bedridden pregnancy and the war was already in full swing her moving about while pregnant and family fighting the Royal family could have been dangerous.

Not that I'm ruling out the idea that she could have been a prisoner 3 Knights were guarding her they were considered the best in the land it's possible.

If Jon is Lyanna and Rhaegar's, then she couldn't have been pregnant when the war started. The earliest point of pregnancy is after the Battle of the Bells seeing as Jon is born around the time of the Sack.

As for her being a prisoner, well the KG happen to be described at the TOJ in the same way as guards are described in the novels: outside the tower of the prisoner they are guarding.

[Bam]

She loved Rhaegar of House Targaryen

Biased. ;)

[Annara Snow]

Read the context. There's one passage where Ned has a specific memory. The paragraph before it doesn't mention that memory. The paragraph after doesn't mention that memory. Nowhere around it is Ned thinking or commenting about Robert's whoring. So yes, that thought would be completely out of place there. If you're going to attempt to be sarcastic, you should try actually knowing what you're talking about.

Love makes people change. And again, since apparently I have to repeat it,despite the fact that it's really not a difficult concept, I mean children can understand it but whatever, absence of proof =/= proof of absence. Saying it is is always ridiculous.

Oh, the irony...

How about you listen to your own advice and pay attention to the context of that quote, which you seem determined to ignore? Let me help you: the context is that Ned has just met a very young whore who Robert got pregnant and who has had his child and named her Barra, and who naively believes Robert cares for her and will come back for her; which makes Ned contemplate the fact that Robert always slept around and made false promises to women, as well as the fact that Lyanna assessed him as someone who would always sleep around and never be faithful. Something that Ned sure as he'll doesn't refute in his mind; on the contrary, the context makes it clear Ned thought about Lyanna's words because they were 100% correct.

[Annara Snow]

Or she could have had a bedridden pregnancy and the war was already in full swing her moving about while pregnant and family fighting the Royal family could have been dangerous.

Not that I'm ruling out the idea that she could have been a prisoner 3 Knights were guarding her they were considered the best in the land it's possible.

Isn't it more likely that the three Kingsguard nights were there to protect Lyanna - and her child, when he/she is born - from anyone who may want to hurt them, rather than to stop Lyanna from running away?

It's not hard to see why pregnant-with-Rhaegar-Targaryen's-child Lyanna would not be exactly safe in Westeros during Robert's Rebellion, not to mention her Targaryen child.

[Berkilak]

Isn't it more likely that the three Kingsguard nights were there to protect Lyanna - and her child, when he/she is born - from anyone who may want to hurt them, rather than to stop Lyanna from running away?

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQyB3_eQIvA_DULqNnOxX8lDAkR3XDn-b2l8c8lbqgAdv6Sv8NQWG7c7g

I find it more believable that the Kingsguard were there to protect the child, the mother simply being a consequence of this. I fully believe that Lyanna went with Rhaegar willingly, but once her father and brother were killed, once her family and allies led armies against her lover... she probably realized how naive she had been. Obviously she wasn't able to leave - for me, the only question is just how severe her captivity was. It could have been quite passive, or it could have been as horrible as Robert imagined.

[Annara Snow]

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQyB3_eQIvA_DULqNnOxX8lDAkR3XDn-b2l8c8lbqgAdv6Sv8NQWG7c7g

I find it more believable that the Kingsguard were there to protect the child, the mother simply being a consequence of this. I fully believe that Lyanna went with Rhaegar willingly, but once her father and brother were killed, once her family and allies led armies against her lover... she probably realized how naive she had been. Obviously she wasn't able to leave - for me, the only question is just how severe her captivity was. It could have been quite passive, or it could have been as horrible as Robert imagined.

What makes you think she wanted to leave? Her last wishes were for her child. It stands to reason she cared about him. Why is it assumed that pregnancy meant little to her and that she wanted to hop on a horse and start a months-long trek throughout war-torn Westeros while pregnant?

[BrandonStark's bastard]

No matter who gave it to her, it would still be one of the few things she'd have that she got when she was with her family. And it would not so much be tainting that memory as it would be reminding herself that it will all be over once her family comes and therefore she need only hang on a little longer.

Didn't Ned say that she wanted to come home and rest beside her father and Brandon in AGOT? It definitely would make sense to cling to the roses, the last thing to remind her of home and hoping for her pack would come for her.

[Annara Snow]

Didn't Ned say that she wanted to come home and rest beside her father and Brandon in AGOT? It definitely would make sense to cling to the roses, the last thing to remind her of home and hoping for her pack would come for her.

It doesn't make sense if the assumption is that she hated Rhaegar, since blue roses would directly remind her of Rhaegar giving her the crown of the Queen of Love and Beauty at the tournament of Harrenhal.

[shadow282]

One other person, Cersei. Not everyone.

Doubting the HotU vision is beyond stupid. Not even bothering with your reasons why it can't be true, since GRRM has both put the vision in the books with no real reason to doubt it and the woiaf app has confirmed Rhaegar died with her name on his lips (that's what I was actually referring to.) Also, nobody but Bran, a seven year old, and Robert, a man with the mind of a preteen, thinks Lyanna was kidnapped.

That really doesn't have any meaning though. If Lyanna had died with Rhaegar's name on her lips, maybe that could be used as an argument. But Rhaegar saying her name says nothing about her feelings towards him. If he was obsessed with her, then saying her name makes perfect sense. It doesn't mean he didn't kidnap and rape her, it just means his last thoughts were about her.

Oh, the irony...

How about you listen to your own advice and pay attention to the context of that quote, which you seem determined to ignore? Let me help you: the context is that Ned has just met a very young whore who Robert got pregnant and who has had his child and named her Barra, and who naively believes Robert cares for her and will come back for her; which makes Ned contemplate the fact that Robert always slept around and made false promises to women, as well as the fact that Lyanna assessed him as someone who would always sleep around and never be faithful. Something that Ned sure as he'll doesn't refute in his mind; on the contrary, the context makes it clear Ned thought about Lyanna's words because they were 100% correct.

Ned never thinks about that memory at all. Never. No connecting thoughts. Not before, not after. Unless you can quote them? It's an isolated memory that never comes up again. So no, again, the context makes it where a random commentary on that memory would be weirdly out-of-place.

Ned visiting Robert's whores 15 years after she's dead is not at all a comment on Robert's behavior during his betrothal.

I get that you really really want this to be true, for whatever reason, but try reading what's actually there instead of what you just want to be there. It'll make your arguments seem credible as opposed to just idiotic and delusional.

And for the third time, absence of proof =/= proof of absence. Seriously, how are you not getting that?

There, bold with italics in a different font and size. Does that help you at all? Is absence too big a word, should I use something smaller and easier to understand?

[Annara Snow]

snip

*facepalm*

Seriously, how are you not getting this??! I get it that you really, really don't want it to be true, so you're trying hard to not see what's in the freaking text, but come on!

Let's try again. This is the whole quote:

“Robert will never keep to one bed,” Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm’s End. “I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale.” Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. “Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.”

The girl had been so young Ned had not dared to ask her age. No doubt she’d been a virgin; the better brothels could always find a virgin, if the purse was fat enough. She had light red hair and a powdering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and when she slipped free a breast to give her nipple to the babe, he saw that her bosom was freckled as well. “I named her Barra,” she said as the child nursed. “She looks so like him, does she not, milord? She has his nose, and his hair…”

“She does.” Eddard Stark had touched the baby’s fine, dark hair. It flowed through his fingers like black silk. Robert’s firstborn had had the same fine hair, he seemed to recall.

“Tell him that when you see him, milord, as it… as it please you. Tell him how beautiful she is.”

“I will,” Ned had promised her. That was his curse. Robert would swear undying love and forget them before evenfall, but Ned Stark kept his vows. He thought of the promises he’d made Lyanna as she lay dying, and the price he’d paid to keep them.

There, different font and size, with bold for Ned's thoughts on Robert. Does that help you at all? If reading comprehension and logical thinking is too difficult for you, should I spell it out for you a few more times?

[Berkilak]

What makes you think she wanted to leave? Her last wishes were for her child. It stands to reason she cared about him. Why is it assumed that pregnancy meant little to her and that she wanted to hop on a horse and start a months-long trek throughout war-torn Westeros while pregnant?

If my gut feeling proves true, she wanted to leave before she became pregnant. Having your boyfriend's daddy kill yours and your brother and go to war with your remaining family would probably have that effect. Lyanna was lovestruck at first, no doubt about it, but once the reality of her actions set in? Once she learned the consequences of her perfect little fantasy romance? She wasn't getting out of there, regardless of her own desire.

As you say, love is sweet, but it cannot change a man's nature. And Rhaegar needed the third head.

[shadow282]

*facepalm*

Seriously, how are you not getting this??! I get it that you really, really don't want it to be true, so you're trying hard to not see what's in the freaking text, but come on!

Let's try again. This is the whole quote:

“Robert will never keep to one bed,” Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm’s End. “I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale.” Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. “Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.”

The girl had been so young Ned had not dared to ask her age. No doubt she’d been a virgin; the better brothels could always find a virgin, if the purse was fat enough. She had light red hair and a powdering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and when she slipped free a breast to give her nipple to the babe, he saw that her bosom was freckled as well. “I named her Barra,” she said as the child nursed. “She looks so like him, does she not, milord? She has his nose, and his hair…”

“She does.” Eddard Stark had touched the baby’s fine, dark hair. It flowed through his fingers like black silk. Robert’s firstborn had had the same fine hair, he seemed to recall.

“Tell him that when you see him, milord, as it… as it please you. Tell him how beautiful she is.”

“I will,” Ned had promised her. That was his curse. Robert would swear undying love and forget them before evenfall, but Ned Stark kept his vows. He thought of the promises he’d made Lyanna as she lay dying, and the price he’d paid to keep them.

There, different font and size, with bold for Ned's thoughts on Robert. Does that help you at all? If reading comprehension and logical thinking is too difficult for you, should I spell it out for you a few more times?

A) Parroting my phrasing back at me kinda proves my point that you're really struggling here.

B) Robert never makes a promise. Ned is simply describing Robert's personality to her. So, in this case, Robert forgetting about his promises means nothing about this conversation. And either way, Robert clearly didn't forget that he loved Lyanna. Which, again, kinda proves how very wrong you are.

C) Paragraphs 2-4 have no bearing on the discussion, so why did you copy them?

D) Where did Ned comment anywhere on that isolated memory? You seem very sure about it, yet, again, you haven't shown anywhere that he does.

E) That thought isn't even slightly connected to the memory. Ned's directly contrasting himself with Robert. He doesn't think anything else about it beyond that contrast. So where in that contrast would that thought go?

F) Seriously, I'm not sure how this concept is difficult for you. Absence of proof =/= proof of absence. I'm actually getting concerned here, which part of that is so difficult for you?

You're, again, reading what you want to be in there. It's understandable I suppose, although at this point it's getting kinda pathetic. For instance, the roses in Lyanna's hands are only ever described as black and dead. Yet, you want them to be blue, so you delude yourself into them being blue.

[Hodor the Articulate]

F) Seriously, I'm not sure how this concept is difficult for you. Absence of proof =/= proof of absence. I'm actually getting concerned here, which part of that is so difficult for you?

You keep saying this, but I don't think you understand what it means. Annara Snow and others have given plenty of evidence of Robert being a "love 'em and leave 'em" type, and because no part of the books contradict this characterisation, we have no reason to stop assuming that about Robert.

[Ygrain]

A) Parroting my phrasing back at me kinda proves my point that you're really struggling here.

B) Robert never makes a promise. Ned is simply describing Robert's personality to her. So, in this case, Robert forgetting about his promises means nothing about this conversation. And either way, Robert clearly didn't forget that he loved Lyanna. Which, again, kinda proves how very wrong you are.

C) Paragraphs 2-4 have no bearing on the discussion, so why did you copy them?

D) Where did Ned comment anywhere on that isolated memory? You seem very sure about it, yet, again, you haven't shown anywhere that he does.

E) That thought isn't even slightly connected to the memory. Ned's directly contrasting himself with Robert. He doesn't think anything else about it beyond that contrast. So where in that contrast would that thought go?

F) Seriously, I'm not sure how this concept is difficult for you. Absence of proof =/= proof of absence. I'm actually getting concerned here, which part of that is so difficult for you?

You're, again, reading what you want to be in there. It's understandable I suppose, although at this point it's getting kinda pathetic. For instance, the roses in Lyanna's hands are only ever described as black and dead. Yet, you want them to be blue, so you delude yourself into them being blue.

Sorry but you're totally off the mark. You have dried roses in Lyanna's hand and blue roses in the dream about Lyanna, and every single time roses are brought up in connection with Lyanna, they are blue. Claiming that the dried roses she was holding in her hand are any other colour simply ignores the significance of all the other mentions.

The same for the context of the phrases that Annara Snow has posted. We have Ned trying to convince Lyanna that Robert would stop whoring after the marriage, we have Ned encountering a very young, head-over-heels in love whore with a newborn babe about whom Robert doesn't give two figs, we have LF delivering an account of more of Robert's whoring its offsprings. In other words, he finally has to admit that Lyanna was perfectly right about Robert's character, that marriage didn't stop him from whoring, and that he was careless about the mothers of his children. And then, we have Ned thinking that Rhaegar wasn't like Robert in this respect. That line of thinking in terms of fidelity, care and stability in relationship, makes absolutely no sense if Rhaegar was a rapist, it only makes sense if Rhaegar was Lyanna's lover or husband.