The KoLT and Subsequent Events

[Jô Maltese]

12 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

OK, it may be sensible, but it still makes you an oath-breaker and traitor. Jaime Lannister sensibly killed the king known for his insane cruelty, and they still labeled him an oath-breaker and a traitor, even the new king.

There is a huge difference here! Rhaegar was not betraying his father after all, he came back to protect his father's seat. Jaime killed the reigning King, and after Rhaegar died.

 

12 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

He was deeply distrustful of Rhaegar and virtually every councilor he has, even before Layanna was taken. For what possible reason would Aerys suddenly trust the word of the prince that he thinks is trying to usurp his crown, especially now that this same prince has lit the fire that is about to consume his reign? If she is such a good hostage, then why not bring her to the Red Keep. Remember, this is all happening right after the Battle of the Bells, a good nine months before the sack of KL when Jon is supposed to be born, so there should be no problem transporting her overland. And even if they come up with some excuse, why would Aerys sacrifice his three most lethal KG to protect her when he has enemies making war across his kingdom? She is hundreds of leagues away from the fighting, nestled right between the Reach and Dorne, about the safest place she could possibly be. What threat does he fear that only these KG can handle?

The KG are the only ones allowed near the king with swords. If he suddenly does not trust these men, then arrest them and throw them in a cell. Don't let them lose in the countryside to plot and plan yet more treason.

And once Rhaegar is back in the capital, what is stopping Aerys from threatening Elia and the children in exactly the same way unless he calls these three traitors back as well so they can be arrested and imprisoned? Why would he want these traitors running around loose where they can go right back to their extremely powerful houses to rise in rebellion as well in order to put Rhaegar on the throne?

He has at least nine months to put his potential bannermen and allies under his command, which he then promptly turns over to his treasonous son. Yet he has neither the time nor the inclination to round up these three traitors who have the potential to a) convince Mace Tyrell that the king is mad and to march his army from Storm's End to King's Landing, b) convince the Redwyne fleet to do the same, c) raise a host from Starfall to join in, d) convince any royal riverland houses to support Rhaegar in overthrowing the king once the rebels have been defeated? ** crazy (?) idea; see below **

"Fuck the ToJ"? Sure, he could care less what's happening there. But "Fuck my Kingsguard"? "Who needs them? They are no threat to me?" Sorry, but no way.

 

** Would Aerys be able to use Elia and the children at this point to forestall any attack on the Red Keep? Maybe, but Rhaegar is the returning hero at this point. It would be extremely difficult for Aerys to justify closing his gates to him following his great victory. But if it came to that, would Rhaegar be willing to sacrifice his wife and children knowing that once Aerys is deposed, he can then marry Lyanna and legitimize his son?

Not sure it is really worth discussing what may have happened then, because as you rightly stress it, there is a huge veil on these 9 months (or so) between Lyanna's "abduction" and the end of the Rebellion.

That said, I have a feeling that Aerys eventually discovered the identity of the KotLT and consequently ordered Lyanna's arrest. Rhaegar, who had already put two and two together during the Tourney - and had fallen in love with her, volunteered for her capture and then was the one inventing the "abduction story", fooling his father in pretending that this (and keeping her far from King's Landing) would protect Aerys from the Starks' wrath. Rhaegar probably intended to secretly get back to the Starks to explain the whole situation... But his plans were shattered by Brandon's flashing temperament and Aerys' insanity, and the only choice left to Rhaegar, in order to establish a "new order", was to defeat the Rebellion first.

[John Suburbs]

3 hours ago, Jô Maltese said:

There is a huge difference here! Rhaegar was not betraying his father after all, he came back to protect his father's seat. Jaime killed the reigning King, and after Rhaegar died.

No, the difference is only in your perspective. KG swear an oath to protect their king. If they purposely break that oath, they are oath-breakers -- just about the worst thing you can be if you are a knight. Whether the king is a good guy or a bad guy is irrelevant. The White Bull himself says they are there to guard the king, not judge him. If they follow someone else's orders to abandon their king in a time of war, they have purposely broken their oat because that oath requires them to obey the king and no one else.

Now, if I understand you correctly, you are saying Rhaegar told the 3 KG to guard Lyanna and that Aerys was perfectly OK with this, so the KG did not break their vows intentionally. Sorry, I don't buy it. Why would smart guys like these fall for such a blatant lie? Why would they think Aerys is OK with his three most capable defenders frittering away the war guarding Rhaegar's love interest? And by definition, this would be Rhaegar betraying his father because he is commanding is guardsmen to abandon the king for his own self-interests.

Sorry, but no matter how you look at it, either Aerys wanted them there or they purposely betrayed their king. Either of these scenarios is possible, but what could not have happened is that they just decided to start taking orders from Rhaegar instead of Aerys or that Rhaegar somehow tricked them into thinking these orders came from Aerys or were done in accordance with his wishes. No way, no how.

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That said, I have a feeling that Aerys eventually discovered the identity of the KotLT and consequently ordered Lyanna's arrest. Rhaegar, who had already put two and two together during the Tourney - and had fallen in love with her, volunteered for her capture and then was the one inventing the "abduction story", fooling his father in pretending that this (and keeping her far from King's Landing) would protect Aerys from the Starks' wrath. Rhaegar probably intended to secretly get back to the Starks to explain the whole situation... But his plans were shattered by Brandon's flashing temperament and Aerys' insanity, and the only choice left to Rhaegar, in order to establish a "new order", was to defeat the Rebellion first.

This is also perfectly plausible and one that I had considered in the past. But if this is the case, then Rhaegar has already betrayed his father because his orders were to arrest Lyanna, not run off with her. If this was done in order to protect Aerys, then maybe Aerys would let it slide. But it still was a foolish plan for somebody supposedly so smart as Rhaegar because there would be no doubt that the Starks would immediately petition the king for justice. And if he had intended to explain all of this to the Starks, he only had to snatch Lyanna and bring her directly to Brandon or Rickard and then concoct the story about a kidnapping, not drag her three quarters of the way across the continent and disappear for three months while the realm erupts in violence.

But I'll offer up yet another possibility:

Howland Reed spent the entire winter (perhaps nearly two years) on the Isle of Faces, which we can only presume to mean he met and lived with the Green Men. So it is likely that the GM explained to Howland what the Song of Ice and Fire was, what was brewing in the Land of Always Winter and a whole lot of other things. If Howland explained all of this to Lyanna, then it could very well have been at Lyanna's insistence that she and Rhaegar run away together and make an Ice-Fire baby regardless of the immediate consequences for the realm because the real hammer is about to drop from north of the Wall. And if both she and Rhaegar could then convince the 3KG that this was bigger than Aerys, bigger than their KG vows, bigger than everything, then yes, I can easily see them breaking their vows to obey Rhaegar instead of Aerys.

The problem is that Aerys still had the means to force Rhaegar to return his KG, and that if all of this began with Howland Reed, then why didn't he explain it to the belligerents at the ToJ so they would put down their swords and unite for the common cause?

[Bael's Bastard]

You are ignoring the fact that GRRM explicitly said that if Rhaegar gave them an order, they would do it. Whether you buy it or not, that is what the author stated. If you are unwilling to factor that into your theory, then your theory can't be correct. There's still plenty we don't know, but most likely their motivation was to obey their direct orders from Rhaegar, and there is no hint that they had contrary orders from Aerys, or that they had to break an order from Aerys to obey Rhaegar.

[Jô Maltese]

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

SNIP

I am not going to argue forever with you on this, because I am somewhat lost with your thought processes and your second-guessings out of the blue. But the main thing you are missing IMHO, is how GRRM'S characters are full of weaknesses and fissures, be them commonfolk or Kingsguards.

 

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

No, the difference is only in your perspective. KG swear an oath to protect their king. If they purposely break that oath, they are oath-breakers (1) - just about the worst thing you can be if you are a knight. Whether the king is a good guy or a bad guy is irrelevant.The White Bull himself says they are there to guard the king, not judge him. (2) If they follow someone else's orders to abandon their king in a time of war, they have purposely broken their oat because that oath requires them to obey the king and no one else.(1)

(1) So what? Again, History is full of them - they are all men with their weaknesses. Aerys Oakheart POV is in the books for a reason IMHO.

(2) Of course not, it is very relevant - They are knights above all and I think the White Bull was an oaf and that Jaime had the right of it.

 

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Now, if I understand you correctly, you are saying Rhaegar told the 3 KG to guard Lyanna and that Aerys was perfectly OK with this, so the KG did not break their vows intentionally. Sorry, I don't buy it. Why would smart guys like these fall for such a blatant lie? Why would they think Aerys is OK with his three most capable defenders frittering away the war guarding Rhaegar's love interest? And by definition, this would be Rhaegar betraying his father because he is commanding is guardsmen to abandon the king for his own self-interests.

Again, I am not stating anything, I just lay it as a possibility, but the truth is I don't know and don't yet understand the whole ToJ arc. So some of your questions here are good questions (some less so), the problem is that I do not think we have enough matter to answer them - and when we have we will then be able to solve this mystery. For a start, we do not know if they were smart guys, and apart from Dayne, we are not even sure they were armoured with Honour the way Ned was.

 

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Sorry, but no matter how you look at it, either Aerys wanted them there or they purposely betrayed their king. Either of these scenarios is possible, but what could not have happened is that they just decided to start taking orders from Rhaegar instead of Aerys or that Rhaegar somehow tricked them into thinking these orders came from Aerys or were done in accordance with his wishes. No way, no how.

Why not, dear me? This actually the most likely scenario IMHO!

 

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

But I'll offer up yet another possibility:

Howland Reed spent the entire winter (perhaps nearly two years) on the Isle of Faces, which we can only presume to mean he met and lived with the Green Men. So it is likely that the GM explained to Howland what the Song of Ice and Fire was, what was brewing in the Land of Always Winter and a whole lot of other things. If Howland explained all of this to Lyanna, then it could very well have been at Lyanna's insistence that she and Rhaegar run away together and make an Ice-Fire baby regardless of the immediate consequences for the realm because the real hammer is about to drop from north of the Wall. And if both she and Rhaegar could then convince the 3KG that this was bigger than Aerys, bigger than their KG vows, bigger than everything, then yes, I can easily see them breaking their vows to obey Rhaegar instead of Aerys.

Why not, I grant you that.

 

ETA: somewhat ed by @Bael's Bastard here, in a much more succinct and effective way! 

 

 

[kissdbyfire]

3 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

No, the difference is only in your perspective. KG swear an oath to protect their king. If they purposely break that oath, they are oath-breakers -- just about the worst thing you can be if you are a knight.

Except for being a human being w/ a brain and accountability and the capacity to make the right decision even if it goes against the rule book. 

A KG knight who sticks to his vows even when those vows go against what it really means to be a true knight - and basically just a decent human being - is a spineless PoS in my book. 

[Ygrain]

4 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

If they follow someone else's orders to abandon their king in a time of war, they have purposely broken their oat because that oath requires them to obey the king and no one else.

Now, if I understand you correctly, you are saying Rhaegar told the 3 KG to guard Lyanna and that Aerys was perfectly OK with this, so the KG did not break their vows intentionally. Sorry, I don't buy it. Why would smart guys like these fall for such a blatant lie? Why would they think Aerys is OK with his three most capable defenders frittering away the war guarding Rhaegar's love interest? And by definition, this would be Rhaegar betraying his father because he is commanding is guardsmen to abandon the king for his own self-interests.

Sorry, but no matter how you look at it, either Aerys wanted them there or they purposely betrayed their king.

GRRM begs to disagree:

The King's Guards don't get to make up their own orders. They serve the king, they protect the king and the royal family, but they're also bound to obey their orders, and if Prince Rhaegar gave them a certain order, they would do that. They can't say, "No we don't like that order, we'll do something else."

 

 

[corbon]

On 1/12/2019 at 6:30 AM, Jô Maltese said:

@John Suburbs, @corbon, I think you both make too much of what it theoretically means to be a KG. The ASoIaF, WoIaF, F&B series are full of examples of KGs making choices not fully relevant with their formal vows, often describing how they interpret their duty or how they succumb to their human nature. The Dance of Dragons is a good general example of the split of the KGs loyalties, and closer to us are many examples of how different men make different choices with regard to these vows and how honourable they were. Just think of Jaime, Boros Blount, Meryn Trant, Mandon Moore or the Kettlebacks. Even Barristan Selmy's choices are not that clear, honour-wise! 

While I agree with you as a generality, for these three specifically (and Hightower and Dayne in particular) the respect, even reverence, of them, after the fact, by Ned, by Barristan and by Jaime, not to mention their own statements in the conversation with Ned, tells me that they acted in full honour upholding their vows at their death.

[kissdbyfire]

2 minutes ago, corbon said:

While I agree with you as a generality, for these three specifically (and Hightower and Dayne in particular) the respect, even reverence, of them, after the fact, by Ned, by Barristan and by Jaime, not to mention their own statements in the conversation with Ned, tells me that they acted in full honour upholding their vows at their death.

Which could mean that they consciously broke their vows to a deranged and dangerous king because they understood that that was what honour, not duty, demanded of them.  

[corbon]

52 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Which could mean that they consciously broke their vows to a deranged and dangerous king because they understood that that was what honour, not duty, demanded of them.  

I could see that if it was just their own words, but hard to see how that would leave the outsiders, Ned, Jaime and Barristan, all still seeing them as the pinnacles of honour and loyalty etc, if they'd had to choose between honour and duty/loyalty.

Better that they'd managed to navigate a tricky line covering both.

[kissdbyfire]

3 minutes ago, corbon said:

I could see that if it was just their own words, but hard to see how that would leave the outsiders, Ned, Jaime and Barristan, all still seeing them as the pinnacles of honour and loyalty etc, if they'd had to choose between honour and duty/loyalty.

Better that they'd managed to navigate a tricky line covering both.

Entirely possible. As to how Ned and Selmy etc think about them, well, they may be as much in the dark irt the details as we are, or even more so! 

[Chris Mormont]

On 1/11/2019 at 5:43 PM, John Suburbs said:

And I know that the story of Hightower being sent to get Rhaegar is accepted as common knowledge, but I can't find a single reference to it anywhere. And even that story is very iffy.

This is in a World of Ice and Fire under Rhaegar

 

[John Suburbs]

On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 2:05 PM, Jô Maltese said:

I am not going to argue forever with you on this, because I am somewhat lost with your thought processes and your second-guessings out of the blue. But the main thing you are missing IMHO, is how GRRM'S characters are full of weaknesses and fissures, be them commonfolk or Kingsguards.

Aerys willingly giving up all his guards and handing over an army to the man he thinks is trying to overcome him is not a "weakness." It is completely counter-characteristic blunder for a man who has grown so paranoid that he is now planning to ignite the entire city in order to save himself. The KG were the only people he trusted with swords in his presence. In a castle full of men with swords that he does not trust, why on earth would he give up his only protection, leaving himself with the one member of this group whom he does not trust?

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(1) So what? Again, History is full of them - they are all men with their weaknesses. Aerys Oakheart POV is in the books for a reason IMHO.

(2) Of course not, it is very relevant - They are knights above all and I think the White Bull was an oaf and that Jaime had the right of it.

I'm not saying that they haven't turned their cloaks against Aerys. I'm say they cannot just start obeying orders from Rhaegar while still remaining loyal to Aerys. They are either with the king or against him. Period.

Granted, the only time we see and hear Gerold is in Ned's fever dream, but what was it about his poise and demeaner that led you to conclude he was an oaf? How could he have survived all the wars and battles that he did and risen to the height of his profession and the adoration of Jaime and virtually everyone who knew him if he was an oaf?

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Again, I am not stating anything, I just lay it as a possibility, but the truth is I don't know and don't yet understand the whole ToJ arc. So some of your questions here are good questions (some less so), the problem is that I do not think we have enough matter to answer them - and when we have we will then be able to solve this mystery. For a start, we do not know if they were smart guys, and apart from Dayne, we are not even sure they were armoured with Honour the way Ned was.

Why not, dear me? This actually the most likely scenario IMHO!

I'm not stating anything about what happened as truth either, just possibilities. But there are some things we know for facts, and one of them is that the KG are sworn to obey their king, not their crown prince. We also have multiple POVs attesting to the characters of these three KG: Ned, Jaime, Selmy . . . So within all the possibilities that exist within the ToJ, there are some that are conducive to the characters as established so far and there are some that run directly counter to them. So Aerys simply handing over his guards to the son he no longer trusts, that runs counter to everything we know about Aerys. The 3KG turning their cloaks on their king, also counter but not outside the realm of probability. But turning their cloaks while maintaining the fiction that an order from Rhaegar is the same as an order from Aerys? No. Their duty is to Aerys.

[John Suburbs]

On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 1:29 PM, Bael's Bastard said:

You are ignoring the fact that GRRM explicitly said that if Rhaegar gave them an order, they would do it. Whether you buy it or not, that is what the author stated. If you are unwilling to factor that into your theory, then your theory can't be correct. There's still plenty we don't know, but most likely their motivation was to obey their direct orders from Rhaegar, and there is no hint that they had contrary orders from Aerys, or that they had to break an order from Aerys to obey Rhaegar.

When did he say this? **NVM, @Ygrain posted it:

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GRRM begs to disagree:

The King's Guards don't get to make up their own orders. They serve the king, they protect the king and the royal family, but they're also bound to obey their orders, and if Prince Rhaegar gave them a certain order, they would do that. They can't say, "No we don't like that order, we'll do something else."

Sorry, he's dissembling here. If Rhaegar gives an order and it runs counter to the king's orders, then they are breaking their oath to the king. That's the fact. So the only way this works is if this order came from the king but was voiced by Rhaegar. So we are still left with the same three possibilities: either Aerys wants them at the ToJ, the KG feel that, for whatever reason Aerys wants them at the ToJ, or they have sided with the man who is looking to depose the king, becoming traitors by definition.

 

[John Suburbs]

On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 4:03 PM, kissdbyfire said:

Except for being a human being w/ a brain and accountability and the capacity to make the right decision even if it goes against the rule book. 

A KG knight who sticks to his vows even when those vows go against what it really means to be a true knight - and basically just a decent human being - is a spineless PoS in my book. 

The king has enemies all around him, real or imagined, including his own son. The KG are the only ones still allowed in his presence to protect him from all of these enemies, and you say sending away all the KG except the one he has every reason not to trust is simply not the right decision? That is the most diametrically opposite-in-all-possible-scenarios wrong decision he could possibly make. It would literally mean that Aerys could care less whether someone were to knife him in the back.

Hightower, Dayne, Darry and other non-spineless PoS remained with Aerys even as he was torching high lords, brutalizing his wife and bringing ruin to the realm. They very well could have suddenly grown spines by betraying Aerys and following Rhaegar, but by definition this means they broke their oaths to protect and obey the king. They are oat-breakers. 

Again, I think you are misunderstanding me here: I am not saying they did not do this. Just that if they did, they broke their oaths, for whatever reason.

[kissdbyfire]

21 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

The king has enemies all around him, real or imagined, including his own son. The KG are the only ones still allowed in his presence to protect him from all of these enemies, and you say sending away all the KG except the one he has every reason not to trust is simply not the right decision? That is the most diametrically opposite-in-all-possible-scenarios wrong decision he could possibly make. It would literally mean that Aerys could care less whether someone were to knife him in the back.

I never said it was a good or bad decision, nor that Aerys had instructed them this way or that way, did I?

My point was that I personally don’t care for a KG knight who sticks to his vows when in doing so they are betraying what it means to be a true knight. 

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Hightower, Dayne, Darry and other non-spineless PoS remained with Aerys even as he was torching high lords, brutalizing his wife and bringing ruin to the realm.

We don’t really have an awful lot info on any of that, though, do we? We know Darry apparently had no problems standing guard while Aerys raped and brutalised Rhaella, and that Hightower reminded Jaime that the KG vows are about protecting the king, not judging him. Which indicates that he knew it was wrong imo. So, yeah, maybe it did get to a point where the KG, or some KG members had had enough. 

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They very well could have suddenly grown spines by betraying Aerys and following Rhaegar, but by definition this means they broke their oaths to protect and obey the king. They are oat-breakers. 

No, not suddenly at all. As you pointed out, they had seen Aerys’s act like a mad, cruel, unstable, dangerous person many times. And at some point it just becomes too much.

Also, not sure why you’re banging on about the oath-breaking, since I never said they weren’t oath-breakers, but rather that there are instances where breaking your oath is the only decent thing you can do. 

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Again, I think you are misunderstanding me here: I am not saying they did not do this. Just that if they did, they broke their oaths, for whatever reason.

No argument from me on this. 

[John Suburbs]

2 hours ago, Chris Mormont said:

This is in a World of Ice and Fire under Rhaegar

 

Can you point to a specific passage? All it says in the account of RR is that Rhaeger returned from the south.

[John Suburbs]

1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

I never said it was a good or bad decision, nor that Aerys had instructed them this way or that way, did I?

My point was that I personally don’t care for a KG knight who sticks to his vows when in doing so they are betraying what it means to be a true knight. 

We don’t really have an awful lot info on any of that, though, do we? We know Darry apparently had no problems standing guard while Aerys raped and brutalised Rhaella, and that Hightower reminded Jaime that the KG vows are about protecting the king, not judging him. Which indicates that he knew it was wrong imo. So, yeah, maybe it did get to a point where the KG, or some KG members had had enough. 

No, not suddenly at all. As you pointed out, they had seen Aerys’s act like a mad, cruel, unstable, dangerous person many times. And at some point it just becomes too much.

Also, not sure why you’re banging on about the oath-breaking, since I never said they weren’t oath-breakers, but rather that there are instances where breaking your oath is the only decent thing you can do. 

No argument from me on this. 

It is a completely illogical decision even in, or especially because of, Aerys' madness. Why is this paranoid, suspicious king who thinks his own son is trying to depose him suddenly allowing this same son dismiss the only people in whom he has a modicum of trust? There are explanations that make sense and there are those that don't, and this one makes absolutely no sense at all.

And sorry, you seem to continuously contradict yourself. They didn't "suddenly" betray their king, but at some point "it just becomes to much." Well, that is the point they suddenly betrayed the king.

OK, fine, they are oath-breakers. I never said this was a bad thing either. Now the question is why Aerys did not use Elia and the children to compel Rhaegar to return his KG to face arrest, or why he would bestow an army on the very same prince that his KG is now supporting as their king. Were these just "bad decisions" too?

 

[Bael's Bastard]

34 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Sorry, he's dissembling here.

GRRM is very good at not answering a question at all, or answering a question in a way that provides no information at all.

That is not what he did here.

In response to a question asking why the KG chose to stand and fight Ned at the TOJ rather than protect the remaining royal family (as in Viserys, who, with Aerys, Rhaegar, and Aegon dead, should now be their king), GRRM chose to bring up Rhaegar, how the KG are bound to obey their orders, and to state that if Rhaegar gave them a certain order, they would do that.

Nobody is suggesting that GRRM intended to fill in all the blanks with this answer. But what this does tell us is that, in general, Rhaegar has the power to order KG, and that if Rhaegar orders KG, KG are going to obey Rhaegar's order.

It essentially confirms what the books tell us and indicate, seeing how by the time Rhaegar rode off to the Trident, all seven of the KG were operating according to or under Rhaegar's commands:

- Dayne, Hightower, and Whent following his commands at the TOJ
- Darry, Martell, and Selmy serving under his command at the Trident
- Lannister remaining in KL

Jaime and Jonothor both make explicitly clear their belief in Rhaegar's power to command in Jaime's last memory of Rhaegar, in which he tries to convince Rhaegar to make the decision to have Darry or Selmy remain in KL and to allow Jaime go and fight, and in which Jonothor reminds Jaime that he promised to obey when Jaime gets upset at Rhaegar's explanation for why he dare not do that.

53 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

If Rhaegar gives an order and it runs counter to the king's orders, then they are breaking their oath to the king. That's the fact.

There is, as of yet, no proof that Rhaegar gave any order that the KG would have had to break their oaths to Aerys to obey, or that the KG obeyed any order from Rhaegar that required them to break their oaths to Aerys,

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

So the only way this works is if this order came from the king but was voiced by Rhaegar.

There is no support for this assertion.

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

So we are still left with the same three possibilities: either Aerys wants them at the ToJ, the KG feel that, for whatever reason Aerys wants them at the ToJ, or they have sided with the man who is looking to depose the king, becoming traitors by definition.

Not only are those not the only possibilities, they are not even very good suggestions for possibilities.

1. The KG presence at the TOJ does not require Aerys to have commanded it, or to have wanted them there.

2. The KG presence at the TOJ does not require them to have felt that Aerys wanted them there.

3. The KG presence at the TOJ does not require them to have in any way broken their vows to Aerys. Whatever issues there were between Aerys and Rhaegar, and we have reason to believe there were pretty serious issues, we have no hint that Rhaegar ever became an enemy or traitor, and the idea that the KG became enemies or traitors by obeying Rhaegar is absurd.

[Bael's Bastard]

15 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Can you point to a specific passage? All it says in the account of RR is that Rhaeger returned from the south.

It's in the app.

Rhaegar Targaryen

"At Harrenhal, he first beheld Lyanna Stark. He brought teatrs to her eyes with his singing, before crowning her his queen of love and beauty before his wife and half the realm. Sometime later, Rhaegar abducted Lyanna with the aid of Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Oswell Whent..."

"Lord Robert, Lyanna's betrothed, was consumed by the need to avenge himself on Rhaegar, but the prince could not be found for the first months of the war. Rumor had it that he was in the south with Lyanna, at a place he called the Tower of Joy, near the red mountains of Dorne. But eventually his father sent Ser Gerold Hightower to recall Rhaegar to his duties, though Rhaegar ordered Ser Gerold, Ser Arthur, and Ser Oswell to keep guard over Lyanna in the south.

Giving Ser Jaime the task of protecting his wife and children, Prince Rhaegar swore that, after the war was over, he would see that changes were made-alluding to his father's burgeoning madness, which made Aerys distrust even his own son"

 

[John Suburbs]

2 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

GRRM is very good at not answering a question at all, or answering a question in a way that provides no information at all.

That is not what he did here.

In response to a question asking why the KG chose to stand and fight Ned at the TOJ rather than protect the remaining royal family (as in Viserys, who, with Aerys, Rhaegar, and Aegon dead, should now be their king), GRRM chose to bring up Rhaegar, how the KG are bound to obey their orders, and to state that if Rhaegar gave them a certain order, they would do that.

Nobody is suggesting that GRRM intended to fill in all the blanks with this answer. But what this does tell us is that, in general, Rhaegar has the power to order KG, and that if Rhaegar orders KG, KG are going to obey Rhaegar's order.

It essentially confirms what the books tell us and indicate, seeing how by the time Rhaegar rode off to the Trident, all seven of the KG were operating according to or under Rhaegar's commands:

- Dayne, Hightower, and Whent following his commands at the TOJ
- Darry, Martell, and Selmy serving under his command at the Trident
- Lannister remaining in KL

Jaime and Jonothor both make explicitly clear their belief in Rhaegar's power to command in Jaime's last memory of Rhaegar, in which he tries to convince Rhaegar to make the decision to have Darry or Selmy remain in KL and to allow Jaime go and fight, and in which Jonothor reminds Jaime that he promised to obey when Jaime gets upset at Rhaegar's explanation for why he dare not do that.

There is, as of yet, no proof that Rhaegar gave any order that the KG would have had to break their oaths to Aerys to obey, or that the KG obeyed any order from Rhaegar that required them to break their oaths to Aerys,

There is no support for this assertion.

Not only are those not the only possibilities, they are not even very good suggestions for possibilities.

1. The KG presence at the TOJ does not require Aerys to have commanded it, or to have wanted them there.

2. The KG presence at the TOJ does not require them to have felt that Aerys wanted them there.

3. The KG presence at the TOJ does not require them to have in any way broken their vows to Aerys. Whatever issues there were between Aerys and Rhaegar, and we have reason to believe there were pretty serious issues, we have no hint that Rhaegar ever became an enemy or traitor, and the idea that the KG became enemies or traitors by obeying Rhaegar is absurd.

Sorry, disagree. Rhaegar does not have the power to defy the king and strip him of his KG to guard his girlfriend, regardless of whatever cryptic words GRRM used 15 years ago. Rhaegar has the power to tell a KG who is already assigned to him to perform this or that function, but this order is way beyond anything the KG should just blindly obey because it means then are violating their primary oath, to protect and defend the king.

Believe this all you want, but if this turns out to be the case then it is a huge plot hole because Aerys had all sorts of means to undo this. There is, in fact, no reason at all to bother with a council because Aerys is virtually defenseless at this point. If he is going to depose his father, he can just do it and hardly anyone would complain about.

And sorry, but if Aerys does not want then there and they are there anyway, then they are oath-breakers. You can't break an oath without becoming an oath-breaker. That fact is non-negotiable.