Did Rhaegar have dragon dreams?

[Bael's Bastard]

59 minutes ago, Widow's Watch said:

I think the point is that all these dreams of Aemon's brothers are coming to pass decades later. 

The dragons will return can be interpreted two ways (and this one is reminiscent of Jojen's greendream that the wolves will return).

We have the winged dragons that Dany hatched and we have the two-legged dragons. A Storm of Swords is choke full of symbolism about dragons emerging from the shadows. Daeron and Aegon had no way of knowing that their family would be cast down and how close it came to being exterminated. 

Even Egg's attempt at hatching dragons. What he does at Summerhall is similar enough to what Dany does with her eggs after her fever dream, so one has to wonder if they did not have the same dream. Maybe he wasn't meant to hatch dragons, because it was something that was going to happen decades down the line. I mean imagine Aerys if he had dragons. 

In a way, it almost feels like the dreams are meant to prepare them for what's to come as opposed to forcing it to happen now. And Aemon's talk of his brother's dream must be key for something that's rather important if he wants Sam to tell the maesters. 

As far as Rhaegar goes, it is possible he dreamed of his own death. And we know it's possible through Jojen. Jojen falls into some kind of a depression after his group arrived at the cave. He is resigned to his own death because green dreams don't lie. It doesn't seem like dragon dreams lie either. 

And if Rhaegar did dream of such a thing, it might explain not just his character, but some of his actions as well.

Not to say that Aegon V became as cruel and paranoid as Aerys II became, but Aerys appears to have developed a similar line of thinking to his grandfather after Duskendale, and it isn't inconceivable that he had dreams (TWOIAF):

In the wake of Duskendale, the king also began to display signs of an ever-increasing obsession with dragonfire, similar to that which had haunted several of his forebears. Lord Darklyn would never have dared defy him if he had been a dragonrider, Aerys reasoned. His attempts to bring forth dragons from eggs found in the depths of Dragonstone (some so old that they had turned to stone) yielded naught, however.

[Bael's Bastard]

7 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

At this point I find it more interesting if Aerys II himself may have had weird prophetic dreams rather than Rhaegar - although Rhaegar's late and weird decisions may certainly also have been motivated by dreams.

It's entirely possible. He attempted to hatch dragons like other Targaryens whose attempts Ser Alester appears to link to "dreams of dragons."

[Belgarad]

Since Maester Aemon had a correspondence with Rhaegar, there could be a whole trove of his letters at the wall detailing his beliefs on prophecy.  Although, at this point, with Sam gone, it seems unlikely that anyone would find those letters now.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

9 minutes ago, Belgarad said:

Since Maester Aemon had a correspondence with Rhaegar, there could be a whole trove of his letters at the wall detailing his beliefs on prophecy.  Although, at this point, with Sam gone, it seems unlikely that anyone would find those letters now.

Would Maester Aemon have left those at the Wall or taken them with him when he left? 

Master Aemon was also Daeron's maester on Dragonstone at one point, so maybe he recorded those dreams. 

[Aline de Gavrillac]

11 hours ago, Ygrain said:

Self-centered people don't tend to be dutiful, though, nor doom-and-gloom about their future role.

Rhaegar was far from dutiful.  

[Ygrain]

6 hours ago, Aline de Gavrillac said:

Rhaegar was far from dutiful.  

Barristan begs to disagree. What we see in the Lyanna situation is "love is the death of duty" theme, but in those 23 years prior, he was dutiful.

[MostlyMoody]

We don't really have any evidence that would show Rhaegar had dragon dreams. Also there is no real reason to retroactively add that to his character.

I think it's sufficient that he was highly intelligent, obsessed and quite mad.

[The Sleeper]

I'd give it an eighty percent odds that he did. 

[Lord Varys]

If one thinks in detail about Rhaegar and the dragon dreams we know about, it is rather difficult to imagine Rhaegar would actually have been motivated by his own dreams. Daeron dreamed about a dead dragon, and Daemon Blackfyre about the deaths of his brothers and a dragon egg hatching.

One wonders if Rhaegar needed some weird dream to find out that he had the hots for Lyanna, or whether a dream could actually communicate to him in a concise and clear way that a child from such a union was important for the prophecy. I mean, do children in such dreams have prophecy-relevant signs attached to them?

[Alexis-something-Rose]

I have a question, because I have gone back on forth on this. Dany's dream of her fighting on the Trident in AGoT and Jon's dream wielding a flaming sword and armored in ice, are we looking at regular dreams or the possibility of dragon dreams here? 

[Nezza86]

I've been mulling this one over for a while myself actually. Another person we see who acts similarly melancholy is Jojen and he said that he foresaw his own death.

I reckon Rhaegar dreamt of himself fighting Robert at the trident and that's what made him realise that he had to become a warrior. Maybe Rhaegar left Lyanna knowing he was going off to die.

[Bael's Bastard]

4 hours ago, MostlyMoody said:

We don't really have any evidence that would show Rhaegar had dragon dreams. Also there is no real reason to retroactively add that to his character.

I think it's sufficient that he was highly intelligent, obsessed and quite mad.

What evidence would you expect at this point? Rhaegar isn't a POV character, he has been dead for seventeen years, most of his closest friends and confidants have been dead for seventeen years, and the only living character that we know was close to him just reappeared as a POV in the most recent book after being presumed dead for twelve years.

The fact is, Rhaegar is a character that is only slowly being revealed to us over the course of a series of books. It remains to be seen whether dragon dreams will be among the things revealed about him, but we certainly have no reason to dismiss the possibility just because it hasn't been stated yet.

But speaking of things we don't have evidence for, we don't have any evidence that he was quite mad. His persuading Aerys to send for Lord Tywin, his command of the royalist forces, and his statements to Jaime before leading the royalist forces off to the Trident portray someone who was reasonable enough.

His alleged abduction of Lyanna is the closest thing we have to something which might be seen as evidence of Rhaegar being mad, but we still know too little about what actually happened and why to use it as evidence for such a claim.

[Ser Leftwich]

On 8/15/2018 at 8:50 AM, Lord Varys said:

Rhaegar would have read whatever version of the prophecy of the promised prince the Targaryens had - Marwyn and Aemon knew versions of that prophecy, too, as would Jaehaerys II (or else he would just have shrugged when the Ghost of High Heart told him from the line of his son and daughter would come the promised prince) and, presumably, also King Aerys I (the fact that Jaehaerys named his only son after his scholarly royal granduncle might be interesting in that context, too).

In light of what we learned in ADwD and TWoIaF about continued Targaryen obsession with prophecy it seems very likely to me that Prince Rhaegar did not, in fact, stumble on some dusty old scroll in the archives everybody had forgotten. Aemon, Jaehaerys II, and presumably Aerys and Rhaella, too, would have believed that Rhaegar was the promised prince. That means Aerys/Rhaella would eventually have told their young son about that, showing him the prophecy that reveals (or hints at) his destiny.

And that would be the moment where Rhaegar thought he has to be a warrior.

The idea that a young child reads some dusty old scroll and then thinks he is the guy talked about in that scroll makes no sense at all.

Rhaegar himself may not have been obsessed with prophecy and destiny at all, actually. He may have just gone through the motions to please his parents.

And that could also explain why he jumped on the comet idea, freeing himself from the burden of being a hero and attaching it to his unborn son (other factors might have contributed, too - the lack of living siblings, Viserys' late birth, etc.).

At this point I find it more interesting if Aerys II himself may have had weird prophetic dreams rather than Rhaegar - although Rhaegar's late and weird decisions may certainly also have been motivated by dreams.

@Lord Varys Agreed. Rhaegar would have had prophecy-fulfillment projected onto him by a lot of people, both directly and indirectly.

As for Aerys possibly having dreams, here is an oldie that you may find interesting.

 

[300 H&H Magnum]

On 8/15/2018 at 5:02 AM, Wight_wolf said:

This is my understanding of Rhaegar also.

Mine as well.  He thought he was the promised prince.  Like the people who believe they're prophets and messengers in our time.  Many believe they're living in the most important time in history.  Rhaegar was the same.  

[Ckram]

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

do children in such dreams have prophecy-relevant signs attached to them?

They could have all sorts of supernatural marks and features. If that isn't enough, the dream could display something relevant in the background, such as red comets, stone dragons, salt and smoke, flaming hearts, talking ravens, etc.

9 hours ago, Nezza86 said:

Maybe Rhaegar left Lyanna knowing he was going off to die.

If that was the case, don't you think things would have been quite different? (an honest question)

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Ckram said:

They could have all sorts of supernatural marks and features. If that isn't enough, the dream could display something relevant in the background, such as red comets, stone dragons, salt and smoke, flaming hearts, talking ravens, etc.

Not sure if much of that could help reaching prophecy-relevant conclusions there. And any vision about a child by Rhaegar/Lyanna over-determines the whole thing. Rhaegar was supposedly in love with Lyanna. If he is in love with her it makes sense he would want to have sex with her and eventually a child. He doesn't need prophecy and dreams in addition to motivate him to do that.

Prophecy and dreams could also have influenced Rhaegar, of course, but once he met Lyanna, Lyanna the person should come to the fore, not weirdo dreams and visions. 

I could see Rhaegar having dreams about the dragon heads (or what he thought were the dragon heads) causing him to believe he had to have yet another child after Aegon, but I don't think this could have been very concrete or easy to decipher for either Rhaegar or us.

The idea that Rhaegar thought he would die at the Trident doesn't sound convincing to me at all. Jaime's memory implies that Rhaegar was very confident that he would put down Robert and end the Rebellion, implying that he had no intention to die.

[Ckram]

36 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't think this could have been very concrete or easy to decipher for either Rhaegar or us.

If the third dragon head was somehow wolfish, it might have helped.

[Nezza86]

9 hours ago, Ckram said:

If that was the case, don't you think things would have been quite different? (an honest question)

What I can't explain is what Rhaegar told Jaime before he left. Jojen knows about his death but still seems to be going towards it regardless. I think Rhaegar was melancholy as a child because of the PTWP prophecy, the deaths at summerhall and what it meant for him. But if he foresaw his death and realised that he wasn't TPTWP, he may, like Jojen, just follow the path anyway as an inevitability. If his dream showed him fighting Robert then it would be clear he had to become a warrior.

Very tinfoil I know, I'm just really going by similarities with Jojen, but I do feel there's more to Rhaegar's death than we know.

[Ser Leftwich]

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

SNIP

The idea that Rhaegar thought he would die at the Trident doesn't sound convincing to me at all. Jaime's memory implies that Rhaegar was very confident that he would put down Robert and end the Rebellion, implying that he had no intention to die.

This.

Rhaegar seemed to be sound of mind when he talked to Jaime and the other Kingsguard in KL. This is along the lines with most of his other behaviors, givings us, the readers, reason to think that he was of sound mind.

While he might of had 'dragon-dreams,' Rhaegar never acted outlandishly because of them.

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, Ckram said:

If the third dragon head was somehow wolfish, it might have helped.

But if it was a 'correct' dragon dream then Jon Snow wouldn't be the third dragon head because chronologically he is the second to be born, not the third. Dany is the youngest. And Tyrion - if he is also one of the dragon heads - the oldest.

A correct dragon dream about the three dragon heads should depict a dragon with a lion's head, a dragon with a wold's head, and a dragon with a dragon's head - if we go by your symbolism - and in that order.

At this point we have no idea what Rhaegar knew/suspected and what he had no clue about but what clues we have do not indicate Rhaegar had any good picture about what was actually going on.

2 hours ago, Ser Leftwich said:

This.

Rhaegar seemed to be sound of mind when he talked to Jaime and the other Kingsguard in KL. This is along the lines with most of his other behaviors, givings us, the readers, reason to think that he was of sound mind.

While he might of had 'dragon-dreams,' Rhaegar never acted outlandishly because of them.

If Rhaegar suffered his entire life from depressions he wouldn't be completely healthy. Not exactly insane, either, but depression is a mental illness, and it might have contributed to his inaction in relation to the definite mental illness of his father. People who suffer from depression usually don't run around and make grand plans.