Part 3. Rhaegar

[AlaskanSandman]

Part 3. Rhaegar

 

This is a carry over from part 

part-1-the-blacks

part-2-dragons-and-starks

 

So lets jump right in.

Claims that Rhaegar abducted Lyanna

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

. Prince Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna, and thousands died for it.

 

From Barristan who also says this of Rhaegar.

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

Perhaps by now he should have grown used to such things. The Red Keep had its secrets too. Even Rhaegar. The Prince of Dragonstone had never trusted him as he had trusted Arthur Dayne. Harrenhal was proof of that. The year of the false spring.

Barristan who was not part of Rhaegar tight circle that included Arthur Dayne, Jon Connington and Oswell Went.

 

Who else? Viserys? Who told Daenerys.

 

Kevin Lannister? Who says this?

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A Dance with Dragons - Epilogue

"… as for Connington," Tyrell repeated, "what victories has he ever won that we should fear him? He could have ended Robert's Rebellion at Stoney Sept. He failed. Just as the Golden Company has always failed. Some may rush to join them, aye. The realm is well rid of such fools."

Ser Kevan wished that he could share his certainty. He had known Jon Connington, slightly—a proud youth, the most headstrong of the gaggle of young lordlings who had gathered around Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, competing for his royal favor. Arrogant, but able and energetic. That, and his skill at arms, was why Mad King Aerys had named him Hand. Old Lord Merryweather's inaction had allowed the rebellion to take root and spread, and Aerys wanted someone young and vigorous to match Robert's own youth and vigor. "Too soon," Lord Tywin Lannister had declared when word of the king's choice had reached Casterly Rock. "Connington is too young, too bold, too eager for glory."

 

She will never wash the stain away, no matter how hard she scrubs. Ser Kevan remembered the girl she once had been, so full of life and mischief. And when she'd flowered, ahhhh … had there ever been a maid so sweet to look upon? If Aerys had agreed to marry her to Rhaegar, how many deaths might have been avoided? Cersei could have given the prince the sons he wanted, lions with purple eyes and silver manes … and with such a wife, Rhaegar might never have looked twice at Lyanna Stark. The northern girl had a wild beauty, as he recalled, though however bright a torch might burn it could never match the rising sun.

So he repeats the story from some wheres, but seems to not know anything about Jon Connington.

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring

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. Why would the prince have thus given insult to his own wife, the Princess Elia Martell of Dorne (who was present), unless it was to help him gain the Iron Throne? The crowning of the Stark girl, who was by all reports a wild and boyish young thing with none of the Princess Elia's delicate beauty, could only have been meant to win the allegiance of Winterfell to Prince Rhaegar's cause, Symond Staunton suggested to the king.

Yet if this were true, why did Lady Lyanna's brothers seem so distraught at the honor the prince had bestowed upon her? Brandon Stark, the heir to Winterfell, had to be restrained from confronting Rhaegar at what he took as a slight upon his sister's honor, for Lyanna Stark had long been betrothed to Robert Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End. Eddard Stark, Brandon's younger brother and a close friend to Lord Robert, was calmer but no more pleased. As for Robert Baratheon himself, some say he laughed at the prince's gesture, claiming that Rhaegar had done no more than pay Lyanna her due...but those who knew him better say the young lord brooded on the insult, and that his heart hardened toward the Prince of Dragonstone from that day forth.

And well it might, for with that simple garland of pale blue roses, Rhaegar Targaryen had begun the dance that would rip the Seven Kingdoms apart, bring about his own death and thousands more, and put a welcome new king upon the Iron Throne.

 

As cold winds hammered the city, King Aerys II turned to his pyromancers, charging them to drive the winter off with their magics. Huge green fires burned along the walls of the Red Keep for a moon's turn. Prince Rhaegar was not in the city to observe them, however. Nor could he be found in Dragonstone with Princess Elia and their young son, Aegon. With the coming of the new year, the crown prince had taken to the road with half a dozen of his closest friends and confidants, on a journey that would ultimately lead him back to the riverlands. Not ten leagues from Harrenhal, Rhaegar fell upon Lyanna Stark of Winterfell, and carried her off, lighting a fire that would consume his house and kin and all those he loved—and half the realm besides.

The Maester’s who even question why Rhaegar would take her but made the book for Robert.

 

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A Feast for Crows - Brienne VI

"When did it change?" asked Brienne.

"When I died in the Battle of the Trident. I fought for Prince Rhaegar, though he never knew my name. I could not tell you why, save that the lord I served served a lord who served a lord who had decided to support the dragon rather than the stag. Had he decided elsewise, I might have been on the other side of the river. The battle was a bloody thing. The singers would have us believe it was all Rhaegar and Robert struggling in the stream for a woman both of them claimed to love, but I assure you, other men were fighting too, and I was one.

Oh…. That’s how the story spread. Robert commissioned singers and septons to put it down into song and history. The victor writes history.

 

Jon Connington, the only man alive that ever possibly knew Rhaegar truly.

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The Winds of Winter - Arianne I

"Or not." Prince Doran had told her all of that. There must be more. "Those are just the things he did. I know all that. What sort of man was he? Honest and honorable, venal and grasping, proud?"

"Proud, for a certainty. Even arrogant. A faithful friend to Rhaegar, but prickly with others. Robert was his liege, but I've heard it said that Connington chafed at serving such a lord. Even then, Robert was known to be fond of wine and whores."

"No whores for Lord Jon, then

"I could not say. Some men keep their whoring secret."

And yet, the whole realm seems to be unaware about Jon Connington.

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A Dance with Dragons - The Lost Lord

Seventeen years had come and gone since the Battle of the Bells, yet the sound of bells ringing still tied a knot in his guts. Others might claim that the realm was lost when Prince Rhaegar fell to Robert's warhammer on the Trident, but the Battle of the Trident would never have been fought if the griffin had only slain the stag there in Stoney Sept. The bells tolled for all of us that day. For Aerys and his queen, for Elia of Dorne and her little daughter, for every true man and honest woman in the Seven Kingdoms. And for my silver prince.

 

No one seems aware that Jon Connington, one of Rhaegar’s best friends and part of his tight circle is in love with Rhaegar.

Now everyone else may have been unaware. But were Rhaegar, Arthur and Oswell?

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A Dance with Dragons - The Griffin Reborn

"My lord does have one prize to offer," Haldon Halfmaester pointed out. "Prince Aegon's hand. A marriage alliance, to bring some great House to our banners."

A bride for our bright prince. Jon Connington remembered Prince Rhaegar's wedding all too well. Elia was never worthy of him. She was frail and sickly from the first, and childbirth only left her weaker. After the birth of Princess Rhaenys, her mother had been bedridden for half a year, and Prince Aegon's birth had almost been the death of her. She would bear no more children, the maesters told Prince Rhaegar afterward.

Jon Connington get catty and jealous over Elia? But not Lyanna Stark? Not even a mention of the girl responsible for the death of his silver prince???

 

Per GRRM we will hear more about Elia and her relationship with Raeghar. He said it was "complex".

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys IV

"And if he does not fail? What will Your Grace do then?"

"Her duty." The word felt cold upon her tongue. "You saw my brother Rhaegar wed. Tell me, did he wed for love or duty?"

The old knight hesitated. "Princess Elia was a good woman, Your Grace. She was kind and clever, with a gentle heart and a sweet wit. I know the prince was very fond of her."

Fond, thought Dany. The word spoke volumes. I could become fond of Hizdahr zo Loraq, in time. Perhaps.

 

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV

If Rhaegar had been happy in his wife, he would not have needed the Stark girl."

"Perhaps so, Your Grace." Whitebeard paused a moment. "But I am not certain it was in Rhaegar to be happy."

 

He did not wed for love, but if for duty, duty to who?

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II

Meanwhile, King Aerys was becoming ever more estranged from his own son and heir. Early in the year 279 AC, Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, was formally betrothed to Princess Elia Martell, the delicate young sister of Doran Martell, Prince of Dorne. They were wed the following year, in a lavish ceremony at the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing, but Aerys II did not attend. He told the small council that he feared an attempt upon his life if he left the confines of the Red Keep, even with his Kingsguard to protect him. Nor would he allow his younger son, Viserys, to attend his brother's wedding.

When Prince Rhaegar and his new wife chose to take up residence on Dragonstone instead of the Red Keep, rumors flew thick and fast across the Seven Kingdoms. Some claimed that the crown prince was planning to depose his father and seize the Iron Throne for himself, whilst others said that King Aerys meant to disinherit Rhaegar and name Viserys heir in his place. Nor did the birth of King Aerys's first grandchild, a girl named Rhaenys, born on Dragonstone in 280 AC, do aught to reconcile father and son. When Prince Rhaegar returned to the Red Keep to present his daughter to his own mother and father, Queen Rhaella embraced the babe warmly, but King Aerys refused to touch or hold the child and complained that she "smells Dornish."

 

So it wasn’t to please his father, and it wasn’t to please Tywin Lannister by marrying Cersei either.

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A Clash of Kings - Prologue

And how do I do that? the old man wondered. Once I might have silenced him forever, but now . . .

Patchface had come to them as a boy. Lord Steffon of cherished memory had found him in Volantis, across the narrow sea. The king—the old king, Aerys II Targaryen, who had not been quite so mad in those days—had sent his lordship to seek a bride for Prince Rhaegar, who had no sisters to wed. "We have found the most splendid fool," he wrote Cressen, a fortnight before he was to return home from his fruitless mission. 

Yet how? When there is a lot of Valyrian blood in the free cities and plenty of women.

Was there no Hightower, Dayne or Velaryon women for Rhaegar to marry? What did Rhaegar seek to accomplish by marrying Elia?

 

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Who is the couple celebrating the birth of a son that Dany sees in her vision in the wizard's palace in Qarth? Can you tell us? Is it Rhaegar and someone? Or is it the original Aegon (the Conqueror?) >>

Rhaegar and his wife, Elia of Dorne.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/15608

 

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

"Will you make a song for him?" the woman asked.

"He has a song," the man replied. "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire." He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany's, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. "There must be one more," he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. "The dragon has three heads." He went to the window seat, picked up a harp, and ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings. Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the morning mist, only the music lingering behind to speed her on her way.

So there is no question, it was Rhaegar and Elia and baby Aegon in that bed in the vision. Aegon is also still possibly alive. So let’s put a pin in that and maybe come back to Aegon- F/Aegon and what Varys and Illyrio are really up to in another thread if anyone is interested to see me connect dots there.

 

So for now lets just sum up, the claims that Rhaegar stole Lyanna seem to have come mostly from Robert Baratheon. We will never know for now how Brandon Stark came under the assumption, but I can’t help but think that Peter Baelish is responsible for that one.

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A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

"Gentle, pious, good-hearted Willas Tyrell. Be grateful you were spared, he would have bored you spitless. The old woman is not boring, though, I'll grant her that. A fearsome old harridan, and not near as frail as she pretends. When I came to Highgarden to dicker for Margaery's hand, she let her lord son bluster while she asked pointed questions about Joffrey's nature. I praised him to the skies, to be sure . . . whilst my men spread disturbing tales amongst Lord Tyrell's servants. That is how the game is played.

"I also planted the notion of Ser Loras taking the white. Not that I suggested it, that would have been too crude. But men in my party supplied grisly tales about how the mob had killed Ser Preston Greenfield and raped the Lady Lollys, and slipped a few silvers to Lord Tyrell's army of singers to sing of Ryam Redwyne, Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight. A harp can be as dangerous as a sword, in the right hands.

 

And Rhaegar’s very sexuality is under question along with his intentions. Which we may be able to figure out from Loras (Arthur) and Prince Renly Baratheon (Prince Rhaegar Targaryen), but we’ll get to them and Brienne’s (Jon Con’s) returned love in part 4. where we shows alot of mirrors in the story too to help re-affirm alot of what's been talked about thus far.

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/150242-part-4-mirror-mirror-stark-stark-stark/