What made Ser Gerold Stay?

[X-Buster]

3 hours ago, Ckram said:

Regarding the KG's journey, I'm backed by canon and semi-canon sources. Which even contradict the theory that Lyanna was being taken prisoner by Aerys.

Not really.  There is nothing at all to prove that those guys were hanging out at the tower.  Ned's fever dream does not in any way prove those men had been at the tower for a long time.  

 

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, corbon said:

1. We are told Hightower's mission is to get Rhaegar to return to KL - and he appears to have succeeded in that mission.

2. We know Rhaegar, when he returned, was in charge of dispositions of the KG and army.

3. From what we know, it appears that Hightower effectively took Rhaegar's place with Lyanna. 

If Rhaegar tells Hightower that he will only return to KL and take command there iff (mathematical term, not spelling error) Hightower agrees to stay in Rhaegar's place, then how does Hightower fulfill his mission to get Rhaegar to return?
By agreeing. 

That is not disloyalty to Aerys, its fulfilling his mission.

But that is just one setting among many that are possible, and not exactly a very elegant one because it presupposes that the Prince of Dragonstone can and would basically blackmail the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard (which would be a stupid thing to do) and that he would want Hightower to stay with Lyanna. Why would he do either of them? He certainly could leave only Dayne and Whent with Lyanna, could he not? And how did Rhaegar prevent Hightower from dragging his ass to KL against his princely will? As Lord Commander he would not only command his two sworn brothers Dayne and Whent but also any men he may have brought along with him. He may have even been authorized to take command of whatever men Rhaegar himself had with him in addition to Dayne and Whent.

And the other strange thing here is that if we actually process that this blackmail scenario would definitely have vexed or provoked Hightower, causing him to not exactly like Rhaegar. I mean, Rhaegar would have had a reason to actually insist Hightower take his place with Lyanna, right? What kind of reason could that have been? And how likely is it that Hightower would have interpreted this in a way favoring the well-being of His Grace King Aerys II?

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Heck, even if you think this is disloyalty, look at the fact that Rhaegar controls dispositions when he returns. Hightower may have known Rhaegar would have that power anyway, just as an example. He may have even been the one investing that power in Rhaegar, by the King's order (speculative, but possible and fits with the facts we have so far).

I actually put forth such an idea myself in the past, but that is just not very elegant, either. It goes completely against the character of Aerys II whose madness is basically characterized as strong paranoia. Aerys II had not seen his dear son and heir for months and when he last saw him, to our knowledge, he thought the man wanted to overthrow and possibly kill him. At this point it doesn't make much sense to assume Aerys II wanted to grant Rhaegar grand authority before he actually had a chance to talk to him to convince himself that the man was actually loyal to him.

It also makes no sense to assume a man as paranoid as Aerys II would actually invest such an authority in Rhaegar before he actually knew Rhaegar would want to return or lead an army to crush the rebels.

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It is entirely speculative, from people who ignore inconvenient facts, that Hightower must have felt he 'should' return to KL in the first place!

This is not particularly speculative since it is sort of a default assumption that a Lord Commander of the Kingsguard is going to return to his king when his mission is over. I mean, we also do assume that Jaime intended to return to his king after he had finished his mission in the Riverlands, right? We also assume that Eddard Stark would have returned to his wife and children at Winterfell after his term as Hand was over simply because that's what we can expect from the way the character of Ned is described.

The same would go for Hightower as well - unless we consider the possibility that there might have been a reason why Hightower would not longer want to be around the Mad King if he could find an honorable or even acceptable way to do so.

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Of course, it may also have been possible for Hightower to simply lie, agree to take Rhaegar's place, then follow him a day behind. Or take Rhaegar by force. It takes a certain kind of intellect to think that these are realistic options, but that kind of intellect does exist.

You don't have to be all that imaginative for that. Especially since we don't know what authority Aerys II granted to Hightower to ensure that his son was brought back to him. He certainly is the kind of man who would actually authorize to put Rhaegar in chains or to physically hurt him if the result was that the ingrate son prostrated himself in front of the Iron Throne.

It is also rather obvious that sending a KG to accomplish something sends a rather obvious symbolic message. A message of authority, threat, and potential deadly violence. Aerys II did sent Hightower, he did not sent Pycelle or Varys. He sent nobody that might have been able to sweet-talk or persuade Rhaegar. He sent somebody that basically embodied royal authority and power in a rather explicit manner.

Thus we have to ask ourselves how likely it is that Hightower negotiated or pleaded with Rhaegar rather than merely relaying a royal command to Rhaegar and ensuring he obeyed his father.

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Perhaps. Or perhaps not. It depends on how much power Rhaegar is authorised to wield.
We did see later that Rhaegar appears to be authorised to wield full power over the KG and the army.

At a point when it is obvious that King Aerys II spoke to Rhaegar and gave him whatever authority he had as the commander of the army.

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I'm not entirely sure on that. Sure, the King can effectively keep all the KG to himself, but having parceled any particular KG out, that KG is required to follow orders from their legitimate hierarchy, so long as they do not involve endangering the King.

I'd say it goes much farther than that as things like Criston Cole's mad plan that nearly killed Aegon II prove. Also, it is quite clear that KG acting in the field protecting their charges (whoever they are) don't have the luxury or duty to always think through how their actions do or might affect the king. They can certainly abandon their king to ruin and death while protecting whoever they are sworn to protect now.

The problem with Rhaegar at this point simply is that it makes no sense to assume he was in high standing with the king. You cannot cite what Rhaegar was doing later as proof he was already in that a pretty much the same capacity when Hightower found him.

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Right, but the two can be reconciled comfortably, so long as you are not a moron. I mean, if the King tells KG X that their job is to guard person Y, than that person Y, depending on circumstances, may well have some authority of their own over that KG - the King and/or LC won't be there to react to events and or make every decision for the KG.

Here there are two problems. First the idea that Prince Rhaegar could easily enough assign the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard to another person without the king's permission and then the idea that Rhaegar could, against the will of the king or the Lord Commander, assign his own sworn shields (assuming Dayne and Whent were both assigned to Rhaegar) to another person.

Both sounds and feeds very odd if one keeps in mind the king we are talking was a paranoid madman. We cannot even be sure that Aerys II still granted KG protection to his heir by the time Hightower found him. Did Whent and Dayne have the king's permission to be with Rhaegar or were they with him in defiance of the king's wishes? We don't know yet.

It makes sense to assume Dayne, Whent, and Hightower all acted in concert with Rhaegar against King Aerys II (at least up to a point) but it makes no sense that all those men were trying to be loyal to both the (seemingly) sane prince and the Mad King. That just doesn't fly.

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I would expect Rhaegar, as an adult Crown Prince, to have such authority. He can order around the KG assigned to him as he sees fit, so long as he does not give them orders which endanger the King. And they have to obey his orders.
Heck, we even saw him ordering around the Kg not assigned to him (Jaime/Darry situation). 
I would not expect Myrcella, for example, a minor, to have such authority (at least not true authority).

It is rather obvious that by the time Rhaegar marches to the Trident his royal father had granted him authority to command said army along with the Kingsguard he, King Aerys II, had then also allowed or commanded to accompany Rhaegar.

One can try to interpret Rhaegar's apparent power over Jaime and Darry as 'proof' that Rhaegar was commanding them, but that seems to be a faulty interpretation because it would effectively indicate that Rhaegar and not his father was the ultimate authority at that point. Instead, a much better interpretation is that Rhaegar believed or knew that if he asked or demanded of his father that he would allow Jaime rather than Darry or Selmy to accompany the army that Aerys II would relent on the issue, possibly because he had, for whatever reason, outsourced all the military decisions to Rhaegar.

[corbon]

49 minutes ago, Unit A2 said:

Not really.  There is nothing at all to prove that those guys were hanging out at the tower.  Ned's fever dream does not in any way prove those men had been at the tower for a long time.  

Thats true.

But you still have to reconcile several facts.
1. Hightower was sent to get Rhaegar at least 6 months before Ned turned up at ToJ.  
2. Rhaegar returned long before Ned found the KG at ToJ. anywhere from 2-6 months before (we can't tell exactly when).
3. The next time we know anything about Hightower, after him being sent to get Rhaegar is when Ned finds him at ToJ - with the other guys who Rhaegar usually hung out with and the woman Rhaegar is accused of abducting. 
 

It goes like this.
i) A+B disappear together
ii) C is sent to find A and get him to return
iii) A returns, no word of C
iv) C+B are found together.

The idea that iii) happens completely independently of ii) and then again independently iv) happens is a pretty big stretch. It needs something textual to back it up, but you provide nothing at all.

[JNR]

12 hours ago, corbon said:

But you still have to reconcile several facts.
1. Hightower was sent to get Rhaegar at least 6 months before Ned turned up at ToJ. 

Problem is, this isn't a canonical fact.  It's just an idea in the app.

Now, if the idea is true, it obviously means Aerys knew where Lyanna was for months during the Rebellion. 

And somehow, he never chose to take her hostage.  He never notified Ned and Robert that he had her as a hostage, as he did with Elia to control the Dornish, at exactly the same time:

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The king reminded Lewyn Martell gracelessly that he held Elia and sent him to take command of the ten thousand Dornishmen coming up the kingsroad.

Instead, he sent LC Hightower into the middle of nowhere and left Hightower, Whent, and Dayne (the deadliest bodyguard he had)with Lyanna, for months.

In Aerys' mind, according to the app, there was no better way to use any of the four of them than that.

We can all decide for ourselves if this makes any kind of sense, and if GRRM would choose to use a fan-written app, rather than his own books, to reveal such a thing.

[corbon]

4 hours ago, JNR said:

Problem is, this isn't a canonical fact.  It's just an idea in the app.

Now, if the idea is true, it obviously means Aerys knew where Lyanna was for months during the Rebellion. 

No it does not. There is no logical connection between those two ideas.

 

[Lord Varys]

8 hours ago, JNR said:

Problem is, this isn't a canonical fact.  It's just an idea in the app.

The novels themselves also indicate that months pass between the Battle of the Bells and the Trident. In that sense the App is on pretty good footing there.

8 hours ago, JNR said:

Now, if the idea is true, it obviously means Aerys knew where Lyanna was for months during the Rebellion. 

And somehow, he never chose to take her hostage.  He never notified Ned and Robert that he had her as a hostage, as he did with Elia to control the Dornish, at exactly the same time.

I think we can take it as a given that Aerys II knew perfectly well where Hightower, Dayne, and Whent were after Rhaegar had returned to court and what their mission was (even if he himself didn't give the order). Rhaegar would have told him. The idea that Rhaegar can hide three Kingsguard and (his second wife) Lyanna from his father while at the same commanding his father's army is very hard to reconcile, especially in light of the paranoia of Aerys II. He would not just ignore the unclear whereabouts of three of his Kingsguard.

And the possibility that the court and Aerys II already knew where Rhaegar and Lyanna were when Hightower was dispatched to fetch Rhaegar cannot be ignored, either. At this point we don't know that Hightower had to search for Rhaegar for a long time - he could just as well have gone directly to the place where he was, sort of like Ned and his buddies seem to be doing later. If this were the case then Varys' agents may have found Rhaegar.

But a hostage scenario for Lyanna pretty much breaks down, I think, due to the new information about the prophecy stuff in ADwD. There we learned that the golden prophecy couple, the prophesied progenitors of the promised is not Rhaegar and his wife, but Aerys II and Rhaella. The Ghost of High Heart told Jaehaerys II that they would (eventually) bring forth the promised prince. His parents are the main reason why Rhaegar was thought to possibly be the promised prince.

If the prophecy continued to shape the decisions and goals of Aerys II - and the fact that his mental stability deteriorated in part because he and his sister-wife had so much trouble producing living children after Rhaegar - then it seems rather obvious that Aerys II would have not used Lyanna Stark as a hostage he was willing to kill while she was pregnant with a Targaryen child that may have be relevant to the prophecy. This was not the case for Elia - she had birthed two Targaryen children but was neither pregnant nor no longer fertile when Aerys II used her as hostage against Dorne.

If Aerys II did not want to kill Lyanna Stark before she had given birth to her Targaryen child this could explain why he never took any effort to get her to KL.

But in the end it is also quite clear that we don't know at this point whether Aerys II ever told or implied to the rebels that he had Lyanna Stark. Ned and Robert and Jon must have known or believed that the Targaryens had Lyanna in their power from the start - but just as Robb and Catelyn didn't care that Ned was Joff's hostage, or Tywin didn't care that Jaime was Robb's hostage, or Robb didn't care that Sansa was Joff's hostage, etc. there is no reason to believe that the rebels would have yielded if the king had threatened to hurt/kill Lyanna or if he had actually killed her.

If we look back to the Dance then the fact that Rhaenyra Targaryen held both Queen Helaena and Queen Alicent as hostages didn't prevent any Green army nor any of Alicent's sons from waging a war against Rhaenyra. Why should we assume that Ned and Robert and Jon would have acted differently?

8 hours ago, JNR said:

Instead, he sent LC Hightower into the middle of nowhere and left Hightower, Whent, and Dayne (the deadliest bodyguard he had)with Lyanna, for months.

In Aerys' mind, according to the app, there was no better way to use any of the four of them than that.

We can all decide for ourselves if this makes any kind of sense, and if GRRM would choose to use a fan-written app, rather than his own books, to reveal such a thing.

There has (and likely will be) a pretty good explanation for this kind of thing.

And the best explanation at this point is indeed that Dayne, Whent, and Hightower actually did not want to return to Rhaegar. That they preferred to conduct a mission away from court.

Whether they also went against the explicit wishes of the king remains to be seen.

[corbon]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The novels themselves also indicate that months pass between the Battle of the Bells and the Trident. In that sense the App is on pretty good footing there.

Indeed.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

I think we can take it as a given that Aerys II knew perfectly well where Hightower, Dayne, and Whent were after Rhaegar had returned to court and what their mission was (even if he himself didn't give the order).

I do not agree. Its possible, yes, that Rhaegar told Aerys, but I doubt it. Greatly. Aerys is too unstable to risk it.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Rhaegar would have told him. The idea that Rhaegar can hide three Kingsguard and (his second wife) Lyanna from his father while at the same commanding his father's army is very hard to reconcile, especially in light of the paranoia of Aerys II.

Its not at all hard to reconcile.
Aerys needed Rhaegar. Period. Rhaegar has considerable power in the relationship at this point. Aerys finally understands that this rebellion is serious, and a serious threat to both the dynasty and to him personally. He has no other option than Rhaegar and none he can trust as much.

If Rhaegar chooses to not inform Aerys of the location of Lyanna and the KG, he can. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

He would not just ignore the unclear whereabouts of three of his Kingsguard.

Maybe he would. You don't know what he would or would not accept. Or maybe Rhaegar told him something that was enough to satisfy him. Or maybe Rhaegar just defied him and told him that was the price of his help. Who knows. You certainly don't. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

And the possibility that the court and Aerys II already knew where Rhaegar and Lyanna were when Hightower was dispatched to fetch Rhaegar cannot be ignored, either. At this point we don't know that Hightower had to search for Rhaegar for a long time - he could just as well have gone directly to the place where he was, sort of like Ned and his buddies seem to be doing later. If this were the case then Varys' agents may have found Rhaegar.

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"No." It all came back to him. Jon Connington had been Prince Rhaegar's friend. When Merryweather failed so dismally to contain Robert's Rebellion and Prince Rhaegar could not be found, Aerys had turned to the next best thing, and raised Connington to the Handship. But the Mad King was always chopping off his Hands.

There's no evidence that suggests Rhaegar's location was revealed to the court between Connington's appointment and dismissal.

Yes, its possible. But if Aerys knew already, why leave Connington in charge when Connington was only there as the 'next best thing to Rhaegar' anyway.
And why not send greater forces. Why just Hightower? 
No, the balance of probabilities, given what we know, falls very much on Aerys not knowing Rhaegar's location when he sent Hightower off to find him.

 

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, corbon said:

Indeed.

I do not agree. Its possible, yes, that Rhaegar told Aerys, but I doubt it. Greatly. Aerys is too unstable to risk it.

There is simply no indication that Rhaegar could have hidden something like that from his father or even his father's court. The fact that Ned later had apparently no problems finding out where Lyanna was or may be also indicates that her location was not necessarily a secret.

I know many people like to indulge in fan fiction like scenarios how Ned may have learned this greatest of secrets, but at this point there is not even a hint that this was a secret or that anybody had any reason to want to hide Lyanna's location.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

Its not at all hard to reconcile.
Aerys needed Rhaegar. Period. Rhaegar has considerable power in the relationship at this point. Aerys finally understands that this rebellion is serious, and a serious threat to both the dynasty and to him personally. He has no other option than Rhaegar and none he can trust as much.

There is actually no positive textual evidence for the assumption that Rhaegar had any such power in this relationship at this point. From what quotes do you derive the interpretation that Aerys II needed Rhaegar to deal with the rebels? We know that he wanted to use Rhaegar to fight the rebels, yes, that's evident in the quote about Jon Connington being appointed Hand you cite, but where is it said that he felt his or House Targaryen's only choice to win the war was Rhaegar? Nobody in the books ever claims that Aerys II thought Rhaegar was the only guy who could win this war.

It could be Aerys II wanted Rhaegar to fight this war because he had finally understood that Rhaegar actually caused it with his stupid abduction of Lyanna Stark. His line of reasoning could easily be that he, Aerys II, had only dealt with the Starks the way he did - and demanded the heads of Robert and Ned afterwards - because his dear son had given him the impression that his 'abduction' of Lyanna was the starting point of Rhaegar's Rebellion against the king. In such a mindset Aerys II could have commanded Rhaegar to deal with Robert to clean up his own mess.

Another possibility is that he hoped the rebels and Rhaegar would kill each other, ensuring that his own reign could continue without any difficulty. Although that's less likely since I actually think there are hints that Aerys II actually reconciled with his father before his death - Aerys II is distraught after Rhaegar's death and believes the Dornishmen betrayed Rhaegar at the Trident (indicating that he cared about his son).

On any rational level Rhaegar Targaryen wasn't exactly an ideal choice to lead an army against Robert Baratheon. Tywin's assessment of Connington applies also to Rhaegar (being too young and inexperienced to deal with as dangerous a general and warrior as Robert) and in addition we have the fact that Aerys II has essentially legendary warriors and generals in his own Kingsguard. Gerold Hightower himself and Barristan Selmy would have been the perfect choices to crush Robert and his allies, considering that they were the two miracle men who also crushed Maelys Blackfyre and the Ninepenny Kings on the Stepstones. These two actually fought and won a proper war.

In that sense it is quite clear that the idea that Aerys II made a rational or reasonable decision when he gave command of his army to Rhaegar is not exactly well-founded within the context of the books. There were better men to do that, men Aerys II didn't have to look for somewhere in the south.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

If Rhaegar chooses to not inform Aerys of the location of Lyanna and the KG, he can. 

That doesn't fly. Aerys II was burning people left and right. A man as paranoid as he was is inconsistent with a man whose character/state of mind would suffer it to be defied by his own son. If Rhaegar had told his father he was not giving information to him Aerys II wanted he would have gone straight to the black cells or into a pyre. Aerys II could have interpreted such a reluctance or open defiance on Rhaegar's part only as evidence for treason.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

Maybe he would. You don't know what he would or would not accept. Or maybe Rhaegar told him something that was enough to satisfy him. Or maybe Rhaegar just defied him and told him that was the price of his help. Who knows. You certainly don't.

See above. You seem to be treating the lack of information here without a proper consideration of the character/mental stability of the characters involved.

There is also, internally, simply no reason to even assume Aerys II didn't know where Lyanna and his three KG were. Nowhere in the text is it indicated that Aerys II and his court didn't have that information, nor is it said that Rhaegar returned to KL all by himself (Richard Lonmouth could have been with him and Lyanna and could have returned with him from the tower or wherever they were when Hightower came to them; or whatever retinue accompanied Hightower could also have returned to KL as Rhaegar's escort).

There is no reason to imagine this to be great secret just because we, the readers, don't know much about the entire Rhaegar-Lyanna affair.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

There's no evidence that suggests Rhaegar's location was revealed to the court between Connington's appointment and dismissal.

But there is an indication that Aerys II had his people search after Rhaegar as early as the Merryweather dismissal and the Connington appointment. And it is quite clear that time passed between Connington's appointment and Connington's dismissal. Time in which Aerys II could have learned where Rhaegar was.

The idea that he would dispatch his Lord Commander of the Kingsguard on a fool's errand to find his son who could basically be anywhere is rather far-fetched. The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard is a rather important person, a man usually not searching for missing princes - especially not all by himself or only with a small retinue. Thus the fact that Hightower was sent himself implies that this was less of a search mission and more of fetching mission.

That's not conclusive, of course, but rather more likely to point in my direction than yours.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

Yes, its possible. But if Aerys knew already, why leave Connington in charge when Connington was only there as the 'next best thing to Rhaegar' anyway.

Not sure what you mean here. The time line has Connington being dismissed because he failed at Stoney Sept, and Rhaegar coming back only after Selmy and Darry had been dispatched to bring the remnants of Connington's army back to KL.

The idea is that Aerys II may have learned where Rhaegar was only after Stoney Sept, when he had already exiled Connington and appointed Chelsted. After all, if the Handship had been vacant when Rhaegar came back it would be rather odd that Rhaegar was not named Hand - just as the fact that Rhaegar was never Hand strongly implies he was not actually having a strong position in his father's government.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

And why not send greater forces. Why just Hightower? 

Because the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard can easily enough fetch a single man with the help of his sworn brothers and a couple of men that may have been there but not explicitly mentioned? Compare it to Selmy and Darry going to fetch the remnants of Connington's army. Our sources all claim these two men did that - but does this mean they rode to Stoney Sept/the lands where the remnants of the army were alone? Just two Kingsguard and their horses? I don't think that anybody believes that.

You seem to be willing to entertain the idea that it is likely that the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard were out there all by himself because this would be consistent with the idea that Aerys II did not learn about the whereabouts of Lyanna.

But you don't even get to this goal that way. If Hightower were still loyal to his king after he decided to stay with Lyanna at Rhaegar's behest then there is really no reason why he should not have sent word to KL about where he was now and that Rhaegar would be coming back, etc. He could even have informed his king about what Rhaegar told him to do asking for confirmation and clarification. Did the king have other plans for Lyanna Stark, for instance?

If your blackmail scenario were even remotely accurate, then a consistently written Gerold Hightower would have felt pissed and unjustly treated by Rhaegar. He would have looked for a way out of this mess - and the next best thing after ignoring Rhaegar's wishes and following back to KL with Lyanna in tow (assuming he wouldn't have done that) would have been to actually sent a raven or a messenger to court to tell the king what Rhaegar had decided to pull. That way Ser Gerold would have quickly received a royal command as what to do with Lyanna Stark, being able to ignore whatever Rhaegar told him to do.

Him actually spending months with Lyanna after being blackmailed by Rhaegar into staying with her without doing anything to try to get out of the situation is worthy of a badly written book for children, not a series of books where the author tries to write characters whose motivations and actions are internally consistent.

Thus the best resolution for this question is the assumption Hightower actually wanted to stay with Lyanna and perhaps did not only not want to return to Aerys II but also to not inform Aerys II about his or Lyanna's whereabouts. Because if he had wanted to do either he could have done so - the author gave him both opportunity and the means.

But it is also possible that the Kingsguard with Lyanna were action both on the orders of Rhaegar and Aerys II. Could be that Rhaegar originally persuaded them to stay with Lyanna for some reason, and then later Aerys II actually confirmed that order and informed those men of his decision. The fact that months passed makes that not even remotely unlikely or impossible.

And as I laid out above - if you take the prophecy stuff into account in all that then the entire Rebellion becomes a secondary thing. A thing where crucial pregnant women may have been considered to be too important to actually be used as hostages.

The idea that politics and Robert and the rebels were Aerys II most important concern goes back to the days when didn't yet have ADwD - which made something which seemed to have been a 'private project' by Maester Aemon and Rhaegar something much larger, a thing King Aerys II and Queen Rhaella were also very much involved with. Possibly to a much larger degree than Rhaegar himself.

[LadySage]

@Lord Varys Hi, there! Totally dig where you're coming from with like, all of this, however, do you mean that Rhaeger mighta patched-up with Aerys? Also didn't Selmy get injured at The Trident?

[Chancho]

Rhaegar was ready to enter the war, take control of his dinasty and overthrow his father... All the chumps of the kingsguard were all aboard and creaming in their pants with the idea of Rhaegar becoming King.

(That is how a see it anyway with what we got so far.)

[Ckram]

On 7/28/2019 at 8:16 PM, corbon said:

1. We are told Hightower's mission is to get Rhaegar to return to KL - and he appears to have succeeded in that mission.

2. We know Rhaegar, when he returned, was in charge of dispositions of the KG and army.

3. From what we know, it appears that Hightower effectively took Rhaegar's place with Lyanna. 

If Rhaegar tells Hightower that he will only return to KL and take command there iff (mathematical term, not spelling error) Hightower agrees to stay in Rhaegar's place, then how does Hightower fulfill his mission to get Rhaegar to return?
By agreeing. 

That is not disloyalty to Aerys, its fulfilling his mission. 

This only works if Gerold was already looking for a reason to stay.

If he the Gerold didn't intend to stay and Rhaegar refused to go, fulflling his mission would involve taking Rhaegar back by force, and that would be a matter of having enough men to do it.

On 7/28/2019 at 8:16 PM, corbon said:

Heck, even if you think this is disloyalty, look at the fact that Rhaegar controls dispositions when he returns. Hightower may have known Rhaegar would have that power anyway, just as an example. He may have even been the one investing that power in Rhaegar, by the King's order (speculative, but possible and fits with the facts we have so far).

On 7/28/2019 at 10:18 PM, Lord Varys said:

At this point it doesn't make much sense to assume Aerys II wanted to grant Rhaegar grand authority before he actually had a chance to talk to him to convince himself that the man was actually loyal to him.

It also makes no sense to assume a man as paranoid as Aerys II would actually invest such an authority in Rhaegar before he actually knew Rhaegar would want to return or lead an army to crush the rebels.

Come on, you two. After the battle of the bells Aerys "finally realized that Robert was no mere outlaw lord to be crushed at whim, but the greatest threat House Targaryen had faced since Daemon Blackfyre". Under that light Rhaegar was even able to presuade "his father to swallow his pride and summon" Tywin Lannister.

It's worth noting that the rebels never sent peace terms. And by that time they'd won 3 victorys out of 1 of the royalists. So Aerys had reasons to assume Rhaegar would not stand a chance to conspire with the rebels.

Even so, Aerys was still paranoid and his plan B was commanding "his alchemists to place caches of wildfire all over King's Landing".

On 7/28/2019 at 8:16 PM, corbon said:

It is entirely speculative, from people who ignore inconvenient facts, that Hightower must have felt he 'should' return to KL in the first place!

"Entirely" is an overstatement. It's speculative, but only because we don't know the exact terms of Aerys orders. Had the king said "... and don't come back without him", then it would be simpler.

However, it's kind of a strange argument to say a kingsguard should not fell like it was his immediate obligation to come back to his previously assigned post after he's done with his mission.

On 7/28/2019 at 8:16 PM, corbon said:

Perhaps. Or perhaps not. It depends on how much power Rhaegar is authorised to wield.
We did see later that Rhaegar appears to be authorised to wield full power over the KG and the army. 

Here I side with Lord Varys. Rhaegar got authorised after he came to King's Landing.

On 7/28/2019 at 8:16 PM, corbon said:

I'm not entirely sure on that. Sure, the King can effectively keep all the KG to himself, but having parceled any particular KG out, that KG is required to follow orders from their legitimate hierarchy, so long as they do not involve endangering the King.

It's not a matter of hierarchy but duty. If the king only extended KG protection to his mistress and the heir prince tried to kill her, the kingsguard would have to fight the prince.

Besides, not to put the king in danger is not the only limit, Nor could the order put any of the other under KG extended protection in danger, nor could it contradict the king's orders.

On 7/28/2019 at 8:16 PM, corbon said:

Right, but the two can be reconciled comfortably, so long as you are not a moron. I mean, if the King tells KG X that their job is to guard person Y, than that person Y, depending on circumstances, may well have some authority of their own over that KG - the King and/or LC won't be there to react to events and or make every decision for the KG.

I would expect Rhaegar, as an adult Crown Prince, to have such authority. He can order around the KG assigned to him as he sees fit, so long as he does not give them orders which endanger the King. And they have to obey his orders.
Heck, we even saw him ordering around the Kg not assigned to him (Jaime/Darry situation). 
I would not expect Myrcella, for example, a minor, to have such authority (at least not true authority).

You're missing the point. Rhaegar extended protection to Lyanna to the detriment of others who, by king's choice, should be protected.

I think if Martin had brought out  that extended protection thing in his 2008 statement, he'd have to explain a lot of details more for this to work out. I imagine that he only had this ideia in 2010, when Barristan became a POV.

[Ckram]

On 7/28/2019 at 10:04 PM, Unit A2 said:

There is nothing at all to prove that those guys were hanging out at the tower.

You said: "I believe Gerold and Whent got there at the same time as Ned's party.  They were on a mission to find the Stark girl (they make good hostages for bargaining as repeated by Sansa's predicament) for King Aerys.  The king was already dead by the time they found her hiding place."

So all that time Lyanna was hiding in the one place in Dorne Rhaegar had put a name on?

[Lord Varys]

7 hours ago, LadySage said:

@Lord Varys Hi, there! Totally dig where you're coming from with like, all of this, however, do you mean that Rhaeger mighta patched-up with Aerys? Also didn't Selmy get injured at The Trident?

I expect that Aerys II and Rhaegar reconciled to a degree after Rhaegar returned to court, yes. Selmy did get injured at the Trident, but that happened later.

5 hours ago, Ckram said:

This only works if Gerold was already looking for a reason to stay.

If he the Gerold didn't intend to stay and Rhaegar refused to go, fulflling his mission would involve taking Rhaegar back by force, and that would be a matter of having enough men to do it.

You are right here, which is why @corbon really wants to believe that Hightower traveled to Rhaegar and Lyanna literally all by himself - which I think is a huge stretch to assume considering who Hightower was and that this was happening in the middle of a war. Not to mention that Hightower would have been in need of more men to do his inquiries if he was actually still actively searching for Rhaegar (which I don't buy either, but which @corbon assumes, too). You don't send out a single guy to search for a missing prince in a continent as large as Westeros.

5 hours ago, Ckram said:

Come on, you two. After the battle of the bells Aerys "finally realized that Robert was no mere outlaw lord to be crushed at whim, but the greatest threat House Targaryen had faced since Daemon Blackfyre". Under that light Rhaegar was even able to presuade "his father to swallow his pride and summon" Tywin Lannister.

It's worth noting that the rebels never sent peace terms. And by that time they'd won 3 victorys out of 1 of the royalists. So Aerys had reasons to assume Rhaegar would not stand a chance to conspire with the rebels.

Even so, Aerys was still paranoid and his plan B was commanding "his alchemists to place caches of wildfire all over King's Landing".

I definitely agree that Aerys II no longer believed Rhaegar was leading the rebel movement - which I think he thought in the beginning when he had the Starks executed and demanded the heads of Robert and Ned, too. In fact, it is quite clear that he thought as early as the appointment of Connington that Rhaegar was not part of the rebel movement.

But that doesn't mean that a recalcitrant or stubborn Rhaegar refusing to tell his father where his Kingsguard was and what he had done with Lyanna Stark, etc. would have been invested with authority over an army. We know that Rhaegar didn't have the authority to prevent his father from using his own wife, Elia Martell, as a hostage against Prince Doran and Prince Lewyn. We also know that Rhaegar was not named Hand of the King. His position was not exactly perfectly secure.

And as I laid out above there is no internal reason to assume Rhaegar was told or allowed to command the army because Aerys II Rhaegar was some kind of super general and the only person qualified or able to defeat Robert. As I said there were other men at court who were more capable of doing that.

5 hours ago, Ckram said:

"Entirely" is an overstatement. It's speculative, but only because we don't know the exact terms of Aerys orders. Had the king said "... and don't come back without him", then it would be simpler.

However, it's kind of a strange argument to say a kingsguard should not fell like it was his immediate obligation to come back to his previously assigned post after he's done with his mission.

That is our default assumption. As I said somewhere above: Jaime doesn't need to confirm that he intends to return to Tommen after his mission in the Riverlands is completed (although he actually does that) for us to assume that he is not going to remain there even after he has finished it.

The only way to get Hightower to a point where he doesn't want to return to the capital of his own accord is to actually assume he wasn't keen of doing that - i.e. by considering the possibility the ways of the Mad King had (finally) gotten to him, too, and he was looking for an honorable way out of that mad house.

5 hours ago, Ckram said:

You're missing the point. Rhaegar extended protection to Lyanna to the detriment of others who, by king's choice, should be protected.

I think if Martin had brought out  that extended protection thing in his 2008 statement, he'd have to explain a lot of details more for this to work out. I imagine that he only had this ideia in 2010, when Barristan became a POV.

There indeed seems to be a development of the internal workings of the Kingsguard. Originally George doesn't seem to be clear how the KG works and has them to be beholden to both Aerys II and Rhaegar - which starts to get problematic as soon as we reach the point where there is a clear rift between father and son (evident from ASoS on). It was also not really clear who actually has the authority to command the Kingsguard.

Cersei has KG protection/KG pawns since AGoT. In THK the KG can be commanded by Prince Maekar to fight in a Trial of Seven, and Prince Baelor - the Hand of the King and Protector of the Realm - cannot do anything about that, etc.

Later Barristan Selmy established that everything related to the Kingsguard depended on the king. And his lines about there having been kings who had extended KG protection to both royal mistresses and bastards (most likely historically involving (some or all of) the mistresses Aegon IV had as king as well as Daemon Blackfyre and other of the great bastards) certainly are in the book to undermine those readers who cite the KG being with Lyanna being conclusive evidence or proof that Lyanna and Rhaegar were married or that their child was a legitimate royal prince. It doesn't mean they cannot have been married or that Jon Snow cannot have been their child after they married - but it makes it clear that all arguments based on the idea that KG being with Lyanna/Jon has to mean or even imply that they were legitimate members of the royal family (by marriage) is really taking things too far. George is aware of the case people are making citing the fever dream and the whereabouts of the three Kingsguard and he chose Selmy's POV to undermine a case made on the basis of that evidence. He was under no obligation to introduce the fact that Kingsguard can also be used to defend royal mistresses and bastards and more distant relations.

We have to wonder whether a KG is a 'Rhaegar man' or an 'Aerys man' and judge where their loyalty lay on that basis (Whent and Dayne were always Rhaegar men whereas men like Selmy and Darry were definitely considered Aerys men even by Rhaegar himself). Hightower staying with Rhaegar can make him a Rhaegar man, too, at least if the king didn't authorize his guarding of Lyanna (which may or may not be the case - we don't know at this point).

[The Commentator]

On 7/27/2019 at 8:57 PM, Ckram said:

Yes, apparently.

"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" (APP, Rhaegar Targaryen).

The white Bull doesn't have an entry of his own.

Nice.

That'd be a good parallel, since Jaime claims Gerold was a better man than him (ACOK, Catelyn VII). It did strike me when I was rereading that Jaime worships Gerold and Arthur because the memories he has were from when he was 15 years old. Were he older perhaps he saw the cracks in the heroes' marble statues.

Hightower likely would. However we have the app issue:

"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" (APP, Rhaegar Targaryen).

It looks like he was on Rhaegar's side. How come?

What about what the app says?

Sweet Sandor, is that you? *Little bird wet eyes*

They did swear, and accordingo to Barristan:

• ADWD, The Queensguard

The first duty of the Kingsguard was to defend the king from harm or threat. The white knights were sworn to obey the king's commands as well, to keep his secrets, counsel him when counsel was requested and keep silent when it was not, serve his pleasure and defend his name and honor. Strictly speaking, it was purely the king's choice whether or not to extend Kingsguard protection to others, even those of royal blood. Some kings thought it right and proper to dispatch Kingsguard to serve and defend their wives and children, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins of greater and lesser degree, and occasionally even their lovers, mistresses, and bastards. But others preferred to use household knights and men-at-arms for those purposes, whilst keeping their seven as their own personal guard, never far from their sides.

So it's more a matter of what the king feels fit than the kingsguard subjectivity.

Aerys sent Gerold to recall Rhaegar, but he instead of returning to King's Landing, to his King, he stayed. How come the most loyal kingsguard stood by Rhaegar's side?

Hightower always has been a loyal man to King Aerys Targaryen II.  He would not disobey Aerys to follow a contradictory request from Rhaegar.  And besides, Prince Viserys was already favored to inherit the kingdom.

[Ckram]

1 hour ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

Prince Viserys was already favored to inherit the kingdom.

Was he?

[nyser1]

1 hour ago, Ckram said:

Was he?

The thought arises but I do not believe action was being taken (please provide support if I am mistaken). 

The only way I see us finding out is if Rhaegar and Lyanna were legitimately married AND Rhaegar somehow convinced Hightower to join whatever action Rhaegar was planning for post-Trident.

[alienarea]

On 7/27/2019 at 10:24 AM, Ckram said:

Ser Gerold Hightower was described as first and foremost a loyal man. And he was sent to bring Rhaegar from the Tower of Joy. Rhaegar returned to King's Landing, but Gerold stayed in the Red Mountains. What made Ser Gerold stay?

GRRM's keyboard.

[Ckram]

40 minutes ago, nyser1 said:

The thought arises but I do not believe action was being taken (please provide support if I am mistaken). 

Precisely.

But people in the court felt Viserys was unfit even after Rhaegar's death. When Rhaegar was still alive (and Viserys was younger), it should have felt even more inadequate for everyone in the realm, no matter who came up with that ideia in the small council. The quotes:

"For the realm! Once Rhaegar died, the war was done. Aerys was mad, Viserys too young, Prince Aegon a babe at the breast, but the realm needed a king... I prayed it should be your good father, but Robert was too strong, and Lord Stark moved too swiftly..." (Pycelle)

"Some truths are hard to hear. Robert was a... a good knight... chivalrous, brave... he spared my life, and the lives of many others... Prince Viserys was only a boy, it would have been years before he was fit to rule, and... forgive me, my queen, but you asked for truth... even as a child, your brother Viserys oft seemed to be his father's son, in ways that Rhaegar never did." (Barristan)

In the end, only the (immoderate, unreasonable, hot-blooded) dornishmen tried to rally for Viserys. 

(Oberyn's work, of course, who else?)

[Lord Varys]

Prince Viserys only was named the new heir by Rhaegar's death.

But we do know that Aerys II's advisers pushed the king to disinherit Rhaegar around the time of Harrenhal. Considering that Rhaegar left court and effectively deserted his father and family and House Targaryen to do whatever he did with Lyanna, it is not outside the realm of possibility that Aerys II actually gave in to the demands of his advisers and actually disinherited and condemned Rhaegar once he learned about Lyanna's abduction - only to realize his mistake later on when he understood that the rebellion he was actually facing was led by Robert Baratheon and not Rhaegar.

He could have reinstated Rhaegar as his heir at around the time he dismissed Merryweather and made Connington his new Hand since he only chose Connington because he couldn't find Rhaegar at the time, indicating he wanted to offer the Handship to his son.

But this is, of course, just speculation at this point. However, Aerys II was prone drastic changes of opinion - his description at Harrenhal implies that he went from weeping to mad laughter to mad rage in a matter of minutes. And when he executed his mistress and the midwives of his son Jaehaerys after the boy's death in a mad rage he later actually regretted his mad behavior and tried to make amends - we don't know how common such regrets were after Duskendale, but chances are not bad Aerys II could rant and rave and demand Rhaegar's head in the morning and ask him to share supper with him as if nothing had happened in the evening.

In a scenario where Aerys II couldn't actually execute Rhaegar - because he wasn't there - it is not unrealistic that he desperately wanted to kill the man a couple of times but finally got over that and was happy and relieved that he didn't do it. And the same would, of course, also go for Rhaegar's status as Heir Apparent to the Iron Throne.

1 hour ago, Ckram said:

"For the realm! Once Rhaegar died, the war was done. Aerys was mad, Viserys too young, Prince Aegon a babe at the breast, but the realm needed a king... I prayed it should be your good father, but Robert was too strong, and Lord Stark moved too swiftly..." (Pycelle)

 

Pycelle is speaking post hoc here, and actually tries to paint himself as the greatest Lannister loyalist of all time. He is afraid of his life. We don't doubt that he was a Tywin fan boy, but this doesn't mean he actually thought Tywin could or would be king back then. That would imply Pycelle no longer cared about blood claims and the like, which is actually very unlikely.

1 hour ago, Ckram said:

"Some truths are hard to hear. Robert was a... a good knight... chivalrous, brave... he spared my life, and the lives of many others... Prince Viserys was only a boy, it would have been years before he was fit to rule, and... forgive me, my queen, but you asked for truth... even as a child, your brother Viserys oft seemed to be his father's son, in ways that Rhaegar never did." (Barristan)

I always wondered on what empirical evidence Selmy is basing this claim about Viserys. Young Aerys II was no nutcase, and Selmy didn't know Aerys II in his childhood, anyway. He served as a squire to Lord Manfred Swann and was named the Bold by Duncan Targaryen during a tourney at Blackhaven around 246-7 AC when he was ten years old (and Aerys II 2-3). Six years later he was knighted at a tourney in KL at the age of sixteen by Aegon V, but he still didn't live at court or served on the Kingsguard - he only got his white cloak after the role he played on the Stepstones when Aerys II was already a man grown.

Vice versa, Prince Viserys was born in 276 AC and the Rebellion mainly took place in 282 AC when Viserys III would have turned six. It would be rather, well, difficult for a man not spending much time with the prince to figure out he was suffering from the same affliction as his father, especially since Viserys III actually appears to much saner than his father ever was as an adult. He doesn't treat Dany well, he doesn't have an accurate picture of what's going on, he has severe self-worth issues and delusions about how to run things, but he isn't insane. He isn't even particularly paranoid nor particularly bloodthirsty. All he wants is to go home, the same way Dany does, although he remembers their actual home. And aside from the Usurper's Dogs he doesn't really want to kill anyone. Instead, he actually hopes that the people still love him and would raise for him.

In that sense, I've always considered Selmy using his not exactly well-founded beliefs or opinions about Viserys III as a way justify his decision to accept Robert's pardon to himself. Telling himself Viserys III would have been a bad king enabled him to look at his face in a mirror.

This is supported by the fact that Joffrey dismissing him from the KG caused him to decide to search out Viserys III. He did not yet know that the man was dead. Despite what he tells Dany about her brother he still intended to go to this man rather than one of Robert's brothers.

[Chancho]

6 hours ago, alienarea said:

GRRM's keyboard.

Well KG Whent went to harrenhal and sundely we got the greatest tourney of all, with rhaegar wanting to gather with all the greatests lords of the realm to chat some important business (and perhaps "changes being made"), most of this kingsguard were probably on board with rhaegar suckerpunching the king.. Gerold being the commander was at least giving a blind eye by then.

it's not like Martin took of his ass... It's very george martin making kingsguard being a bunch of hypocrites...