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Where did Elia fit in the Lyanna-Rhaegar relationship?


Alyn Oakenfist

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3 hours ago, frenin said:

Why would Rhaegar want to choose Lyanna of all people?? I very much doubt that he'd want his kid to remain a bastard and then again, i can't name a single smart decision he made, i don't know why he'd take the smarter route here

Yeah, idk why he chose Lyanna. I don't think he probably wanted his child to be a bastard but maybe he thought that was less important than what he was doing. 

3 hours ago, frenin said:

don't know whether Elia was or not into that, that's why i say if she wasn't. If she wasn't, she would almost surely tell him to fuck off, if she was, whether she liked her lot or not, she'd either agree or at least she would not become an obstacle

Yeah I agree. 

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9 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

If Rhaegar had a great deal of heat with the Martell's it does seem odd to me that he would hide his "new found love" Lyanna in the Prince's Pass, which would have put her directly within the jurisdiction of the Martells.

Well we don’t know if they knew Rhaegar was hiding in Dorne and from there on it’s all speculation.  Here’s what we do know:

they were not ok with Lyanna’s crowning.  (Also, look at the context of this. Elia is prone to sickness, she nearly died from her first child, which was not a long a time ago, and currently pregnant with another one. Rhaegar crowning another woman who is younger with “wild beauty” seems pretty offensive to me). 

they sent forces only for Elia

Aerys had to remind Lewyn he had Elia with him

held Elia hostage because he thought Lewyn betrayed Rhaegar 

I think it’s still up in the air but I can see there could have been some conflict between the families

Also, if the Martells were helping Rhaegar then why didn’t they provide a maester so Lyanna can survive childbirth?

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17 minutes ago, Crona said:

Well we don’t know if they knew Rhaegar was hiding in Dorne and from there on it’s all speculation.  Here’s what we do know:

they were not ok with Lyanna’s crowning 

they sent forces only for elia

Aerys had to remind Lewyn he had Elia with him

held Elia hostage because he thought Lewyn betrayed Rhaegar 

I think it’s still up in the air but I can see there  could have some conflict between the families

Also, if the Martells were helping Rhaegar then why didn’t they provide a maester so Lyanna can survive childbirth?

 

 

 

 

 

True but it does seem a little odd that Rhaegar would hide so close to them, whether they knew he was there or not, if he knew they were angry. 

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Just now, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

True but it does seem a little odd that Rhaegar would hide so close to them, whether they knew he was there or not, if he knew they were angry. 

Yea I can’t figure out what he was doing in Dorne. I doubt that it had to do with the Martells.

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3 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

If Rhaegar had a great deal of heat with the Martell's it does seem odd to me that he would hide his "new found love" Lyanna in the Prince's Pass, which would have put her directly within the jurisdiction of the Martells.

I'd go as far as to say that if the Martells had wanted to, they could have come down on the ToJ, confronted the Kingsguard, taken Lyanna and turned her over to Aerys as a fuck you to Rhaegar, but they didn't.

I personally don't really buy into the whole the Martells were so pissed at Rhaegar that they would not commit troops to the war effort. Doran being angry at Rhaegar doesn't change the fact that Elia and the children were between Aerys's hands and subject to his erratic behavior. I think Doran was waiting on Rhaegar to emerge.

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3 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

We don't really have any information that there was any particular blowback between Rhaegar and Elia after he crowned Lyanna with the blue rose crown.  In fact, assuming the HOTU vision took place shortly after the Harrenhal tourney, there didn't appear to be any visible strain between the two as they spoke about what to name their child.

That vision wouldn't have been shortly after Harrenhal, but rather months afterwards. Elia wouldn't have gone to Harrenhal if the birth had been close at hand. The vision as such is very neutral - a noble couple talking about their child. Even Stannis and Selyse, Jon and Lysa, and Robert and Cersei would have that kind of conversations. The whole point of such arranged marriages is to produce children to continue the dynasty.

But I agree that the crowning there wouldn't have caused a major quarrel between Elia and Rhaegar - although her smile most likely also died there. The affair as such was pretty minor - what made it big was the subsequent abduction.

3 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

And while we're on that subject, it also doesn't appear that Rhaegar is hiding from Elia his belief that their child is the one to fulfill this role as the prince that was promised.

Sure, but nothing indicates Elia cared (much) about this stuff. The important thing about Aegon is that he is her son and Rhaegar's heir, the prince that will be king after Rhaegar.

3 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

Nor do we have any evidence whatsoever that Elia wrote any letters to either of her brothers concerning any issues she had with Rhaegar.

We don't have that, but we can reasonably expect Doran Martell to ask his sister what happened with Lyanna and Rhaegar. Rhaegar didn't seemed to have talked to anyone about what happened, and somebody must have informed Doran what was going on. Could also have been Lewyn Martell, of course.

3 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

If Rhaegar had a great deal of heat with the Martell's it does seem odd to me that he would hide his "new found love" Lyanna in the Prince's Pass, which would have put her directly within the jurisdiction of the Martells.

There is no indication that Lyanna and Rhaegar were there throughout the entire war, especially not that they went there immediately after the abduction - at a time when nobody had any inclination that Robert Baratheon would start a rebellion that would, eventually, also endanger Elia and her children.

6 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

For what it's worth I don't think Elia was probably all good with this. I think it likely made her very angry but Rhaegar felt it was his duty to this - That's what I think anyway. I just think we can't say for sure though.

This cannot be a constructed as a 'duty'. It was in no way Rhaegar's 'duty' to try to fulfill a prophecy or to try to produce some prophesied savior. Rhaegar's first duty was to his royal father, his second duty to his family and dynasty, and his third duty, perhaps, to the Iron Throne and the Realm (and of course the people of Dragonstone he was sort of ruling as their prince). But the latter is questionable in light of the fact that he was just an heir, i.e. a nobody waiting to become somebody once his father died. If he had sat on the Small Council or had been the Hand he could reasonably say he had a duty to the common good or something of that sort (in addition to his loyalty to the king and the Targaryen dynasty) but this was not the case for Rhaegar. It is like saying Tyrion has a duty to set Casterly Rock to right while he was just Tywin's son and having no formal position at the Rock.

In a very real sense Rhaegar sort of acts like Arya does when she murders poor Dareon. He takes on a burden/responsibility nobody endowed him with. It is more abstract in his case but also madder considering the basis for his problematic and dangerous actions were interpretations of ancient texts and delusions about the meaning of comets he saw in a night he slept with his wife (which apparently didn't happen all that often or else he couldn't pin down the night in which Aegon was allegedly conceived).

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3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

This cannot be a constructed as a 'duty'. It was in no way Rhaegar's 'duty' to try to fulfill a prophecy or to try to produce some prophesied savior. Rhaegar's first duty was to his royal father, his second duty to his family and dynasty, and his third duty, perhaps, to the Iron Throne and the Realm (and of course the people of Dragonstone he was sort of ruling as their prince). But the latter is questionable in light of the fact that he was just an heir, i.e. a nobody waiting to become somebody once his father died. If he had sat on the Small Council or had been the Hand he could reasonably say he had a duty to the common good or something of that sort (in addition to his loyalty to the king and the Targaryen dynasty) but this was not the case for Rhaegar. It is like saying Tyrion has a duty to set Casterly Rock to right while he was just Tywin's son and having no formal position at the Rock.

I don't disagree but that doesn't mean Rhaegar didn't see it as his duty. I think someones duty is always, first & foremost to their family. I don't think it's out of the question for the heir to the IT to feel some duty or responsibility toward it though. I would say he would or should feel more duty toward the realm than the Hand or the small council, especially considering his father was going bat shit crazy. 

I wouldn't liken it to Tyrion but to Jaime, if he were capable of inheriting CR. Or Tyrion if Tywin recognized him as his rightful heir. I think either one would feel some responsibility toward the Rock knowing it would be theirs one day. 

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8 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

In a very real sense Rhaegar sort of acts like Arya does when she murders poor Dareon. He takes on a burden/responsibility nobody endowed him with. It is more abstract in his case but also madder considering the basis for his problematic and dangerous actions were interpretations of ancient texts and delusions about the meaning of comets he saw in a night he slept with his wife (which apparently didn't happen all that often or else he couldn't pin down the night in which Aegon was allegedly conceived

Yeah I can see the comparison with Arya & Dareon. Although, depending on what information Rhaegar had, I may feel he is more justified. He may have taken on a responsibility that no one endowed him with but that is not, in itself, a negative thing right? Sometimes, something needs done & thankfully some one steps up to do it, regardless if it was their responsibility or not. 

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We can't know for sure but we can possibly put somethings together. 

First is that Elia and Rhaegar had an arranged marriage. Rhaegar was fond of her but we aren't reliably told Elia's feelings towards him but they seemed to care about each other. It was certainly a better marriage than the one between Rhaegar's parents and other ones we've seen. 

Based on Dany's vision in THotU, Elia knew of Rhaegar's beliefs though not if she believed the same. There also doesn't seem to be any animosity between them and this is after Harrenhal. 

I'm of the belief that Lyanna was TKotLT and the reason Rhaegar gave her the laurel was to honor her valor, not because of prophecy. Remember this took place before Elia was told that another pregnancy would kill her. I also believe Rhaegar told Elia the truth. He simply could have whispered in her ear so that Aerys wouldn't have found out. Elia's beloved brother Oberyn teaches his daughters how to defend themselves so Elia might have been impressed by Lyanna's skill.

Another thing about Oberyn is his own sexual history. He has 8 acknowledged daughters by 5 women and has his own paramour. Dorne has a more relaxed view on sexuality so the idea of Rhaegar having a lover probably wouldn't have upset Elia. 

Whether she knew about the rest - Rhaegar running off with Lyanna and I believe marrying her, having another child that could potentially have displaced Aegon (people forget that at the time women couldn't inherit the Iron Throne so Rhaenys wasn't in line) is harder to say. Perhaps one day we'll find out. 

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On 1/23/2020 at 11:00 PM, frenin said:
  1. Ofc, Aemon was talking about his brothers, not him. His brothers had prophetic drams with dragons.
  2. None of his brothers would've died the way they did if they weren't affected by those dreams.

Had not Aerion and Egg dreamt with dragons returning to Westeros, they would not have tried to fulgil those dreams. Had Daemon 2 not dreamt about a dragon hatching in Whitewalls, there would not have been a 2 Blackfyre rebellion and, if you want to believe that's the primary factor, had Rhaegar not tried to fulfil the prophecy, he would not have lost everything.

Because it was wanting to fulfil the prophecy that resulted in his death.

OK, I see your point here. But the situation is a bit more complex, IMO. Aerion wanted to literally become a dragon - what for? Just because - or did he have some noble purpose? The latter is unlikely, given the kind of person he was. We know little of the details of his dream, whether drinking wildfire (a pretty extreme idea) was included in it, whether he had ever had any dreams that had already proved to be prophetic etc.

Aegon wanted dragons in order to achieve a noble purpose - to gain enough power to introduce progressive reforms in Westeros. From a moral viewpoint the idea (regardless of the success of the experiment) can be debated - are you allowed to unleash such a destructive weapon on the world for whatever noble purpose? But it can be reasonably supposed that bringing back dragons was not the only option for him to choose, so taking such a big risk on multiple levels may not have been justified. Then again we don't know what exactly the experiment involved, what knowledge it was based on, what and how went wrong.  

Daemon just wanted the throne for himself. That was not a noble purpose to start a war for, even if he could have been sure that he would win. Also, while he may have started a rebellion on the basis of a dream, it's hard to say that he would not have started one without the dream - maybe at some other time, based on some other idea, because he believed he was entitled to the Iron Throne, dream or not. By the way, his dream came true, only not the way he had thought. 

In Rhaegar's case, the hints we have about the Prince that Was Promised and the Song of Ice and Fire suggest that Rhaegar wanted to fulfill a prophecy whose contents affected the future of his realm, perhaps the whole of mankind. (Granted, if the prophecy only concerned Rhaegar's very personal interests, then it's a totally different story, but it doesn't seem so.) If the prophecy showed the options that (for example) the realm will be destroyed, its inhabitants killed unless TPTWP is born at the right time and has the necessary helpers (the dragon has three heads), and if the prophecy is worded in a way that one of the two options (total destruction or the birth of the three "dragons") will come true, then a responsible future king is more likely to choose to act with the purpose of enabling the birth of said individuals than just ignore the whole thing (since this is a world where true prophecies exist, and the Long Night has happened before). Especally, that this condition seems far less extreme and dangerous to realize than drinking wildfire or hatching actual dragons. If the prophecy turns out to be a total nonsense, what happens? There will be three royal kids, not a big deal. The problem started when it turned out that Elia couldn't give birth to a third child, and Rhaegar had to decide whether to abandon the realization of the condition (and risk the destruction of the realm, the failure of TPTWP etc.) or to pursue it.   

On 1/23/2020 at 11:00 PM, frenin said:

Funny you say that,  I don't like condescension and as i said above i disagree with these statements.

  1. Even if she didn't believe in the prophecy it was in her best interest/duty to please Rhaegar and accept whatever funny idea that came out of his mouth because otherwise she would risk an annulment, she would have "the status of wife number 1º". which is unlikely, etc etc etc. 
  2. She would need to compromise with the situation.
  3.  She may just believed that "her husband knew better". (This i dislike the most).

 

I agree that Elia may have been either believed the prophecy or being convinced about its importance, i completely disagree that if it she didn't share his hubby's concerns, the best for her was play ball. That's the best for Rhaegar

OK. I think Elia 1) may have believed in the prophecy, but if she did not, I think there are still two options theoretically, 2) one is to play along for whatever reason and for whatever length of time (it would remind me of Doran), the other is 3) to try everything in her power to stop Rhaegar from pursuing his goal. (By the way, not believing in the prophecy does not necessarily mean thinking it's absolutely nonsense, there is also the attitude "perhaps yes, perhaps not, we'll see".) You don't believe that the second option above is possible, maybe because it doesn't fit your image of Elia, maybe for some other reason. Let's just agree to disagree. 

On 1/23/2020 at 11:00 PM, frenin said:

Ofc it does, Doran is both Dornishman, he is angry, and he's known for his caution.

Could be, but the wording does open the door to another interpretation.

On 1/23/2020 at 11:00 PM, frenin said:

That's not writting the missing parts, it's just texting all we know.

We know that Rickard was heading south with 200 men and heading to Riverrun, we know that Brandon and his wedding party were heading north to welcome them when he heard about the news of Lyanna and instead of heading north and telling his father he raced to King's Landing,  so yes before Ned and Robert (Eyrie) and Rickard (going south), Brandon who is the first we're told got the info would be already on his way to death. So far, that's the info we have, the rest is working with that info, you know timeline, relative distance, geography and the such, what is writing the missing parts is claiming that no one cared about Lyanna's whereabouts until Aerys demanded Bobby's and Ned's heads.

I believe that you can see the great difference between kidnapping and raping and a hostage and why those two situations would imply different approaches.

The geography and the timeline may tell us how much time they needed to gather an army, but it says nothing on whether they indeed started to gather an army as soon as Lyanna disappeared. You are stating that it had to be obvious to everyone in-world that the kidnapping would be followed by war, but then why wasn't it obvious to Brandon? If it was such a 100% casus belli, then why on earth did Brandon want to challenge Rhaegar to single combat, and why did he go to KL to have himself captured as a hostage if it was obvious that the Starks and the Baratheons would now go to war?

Who claimed that "no one cared about Lyanna"? Brandon cared, Ned obviously cared, and I believe Rickard cared as well, Robert, too. Starting a war is not the only thing that takes time - figuring out what to do, getting some reliable information on her whereabouts and the general circumstances would also take time. 

Now, the difference between "kidnapping and raping" and "a hostage": If they simply assumed that Lyanna was kidnapped and raped, but not a potential hostage, then starting a war was definitely not their priority -provided they cared about Lyanna first of all. Will a rapist necessarily keep a rape victim? First they had to make sure that Lyanna was still with Rhaegar / the Targaryens and, if not, to find out where she was, if she was even alive etc. If she was with the Targeryens, that would require different actions than if she was free but lost or ill somewhere or if she was dead. If she was still with the Targaryens, even as a rape victim she was a hostage, unless she had gone with Rhaegar willingly. I'm pretty sure if Rickard had received a message from Rhaegar informing him on Lyanna's whereabouts and inviting him to go there and discuss the situation, there is a good chance that he would have gone there just as he went to KL for Brandon. And who knows, perhaps he would have received such a message if things had happened differently.   

On 1/23/2020 at 11:00 PM, frenin said:

Regarding to Elia, her situation was not Cat's. Given Rhaegar's great ability to making enemies, given that he needed Dorne to back his plans regarding his father and given that he was one mistake away from getting  disowned, Elia could afford not act like Cat if she wanted

Possible.

On 1/23/2020 at 11:00 PM, frenin said:

At any rate i said that Rhaegar didn't know more than we do,, that's precisely why i said as far we know you're the one saying that Rhaegar could not get a dragon head with a commoner or a simple noble.

  How can you be so sure about this?? We don't know. 

I didn't say that I knew it for sure (I keep repeating the disclaimer that all this is speculation, and that's why I'm open to various possibilities). I merely pointed out that blood / bloodline is extremely important in this culture, which might be an explanation either because of what Rhaegar himself came to conclude (and he wouldn't be especially snobbish about it, as the importance of bloodlines affected most aspects of life in that society) or because of something directly included in the prophecy. The "Song of Ice and Fire" comment from Rhaegar is interesting in this respect. If we look at the marriage of a Targaryen and a Martell, it seems like a union between fire and fire (dragons + the Sun). So, as per bloodline, TPWTP would be fire+fire. Rhaegar's daughter would also be fire+fire. Perhaps it seemed a good idea to include a fire+ice person as the third head, once it was clear that the Princess couldn't be the third head's mother, and the Starks have the "iciest" bloodline (right behind the Others). That's just an idea based on the information we have. It is also possible that Lyanna as the KOTLT impressed Rhaegar so much that he thought she was worthy of being the mother of the third head. Elia might have been more comfortable with a commoner girl, but then the child of a commoner girl would have considerable disadvantage in a royal court, and perhaps the dragon also needed balance. 

On 1/23/2020 at 11:00 PM, frenin said:

The main political point about Lyanna was both her blood and the powerful men she had behind her, which is why it's extremely unlikely that a non believer whose kids were already mistreated by the King, would ever accept such deal.

That's a valid reason for Elia not to like or accept the situation. Unless there was something really big on the other side of the equation as well. Mind you, I'm not saying there was definitely anything big for her there, again, just pondering the possibilities. 

On 1/23/2020 at 11:00 PM, frenin said:

Cat had kidnapped his hated son then and the Castamere and the Tarbeck did threaten the survival of the Lannisters, they rebelled against the weakest and most despised Lord of Casterly we've known so far and under the reign of a King who was reckoned weak by all. But then again, if you want to consider him a zealot, sure why not.

Well, "survival of the Lannisters" is understood rather broadly here. And yes, Tywin pretty well fits the definition of a zealot.  

On 1/23/2020 at 11:00 PM, frenin said:

At the beginning?? Perhaps not, later?? Sure he believed in all of it, that's why he keeps saying that the true enemy is beyond the wall. That was his rationalization about burning Edric, killing one to save them all.

It seems to me he had doubts at the time and with his speech he was trying to convince himself as well as Davos. If he had been a true fanatic, he would have just gone ahead with the deed long before Davos had the opportunity to spirit the boy away. He seems much more certain about the real enemy after he has arrived at the Wall. 

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1 hour ago, Julia H. said:

In Rhaegar's case, the hints we have about the Prince that Was Promised and the Song of Ice and Fire suggest that Rhaegar wanted to fulfill a prophecy whose contents affected the future of his realm, perhaps the whole of mankind. (Granted, if the prophecy only concerned Rhaegar's very personal interests, then it's a totally different story, but it doesn't seem so.) If the prophecy showed the options that (for example) the realm will be destroyed, its inhabitants killed unless TPTWP is born at the right time and has the necessary helpers (the dragon has three heads), and if the prophecy is worded in a way that one of the two options (total destruction or the birth of the three "dragons") will come true, then a responsible future king is more likely to choose to act with the purpose of enabling the birth of said individuals than just ignore the whole thing (since this is a world where true prophecies exist, and the Long Night has happened before). Especally, that this condition seems far less extreme and dangerous to realize than drinking wildfire or hatching actual dragons. If the prophecy turns out to be a total nonsense, what happens? There will be three royal kids, not a big deal. The problem started when it turned out that Elia couldn't give birth to a third child, and Rhaegar had to decide whether to abandon the realization of the condition (and risk the destruction of the realm, the failure of TPTWP etc.) or to pursue it.

We can be pretty sure that neither of that was ever the case because no one ever indicated that the prophecy about the promised prince or whatever other ancient scrolls and texts talked about the returned Azor Ahai savior were this concrete, because nobody knowing those texts seems to be aware of the true nature of the threat. Benerro and Melisandre interpret struggle religiously and spiritually, and Rhaegar definitely didn't understand what the war was about, either, or else he and his father and grandfather would have focused much more on the Others and the Wall and the Watch. Marwyn and Aemon don't indicate the prophecy mentions any special circumstances that have to be arranged, either. And Melisandre seems to know the prophecy version of the Targaryens since she also refers to Stannis as the prince that was promised. Yet she doesn't care who Stannis' parents were or other circumstances surrounding his birth.

And unlike Daeron the Drunk, Daemon II Blackfyre, Aerion, Aegon V, and Daenerys there is, at this point, no indication that Rhaegar himself ever had prophetic dreams about dragons and any such things. Rhaegar developed queer notions about his son being a prophesied savior by interpreting ancient texts and connecting them witih natural events that likely meant nothing at all (the comet above KL in the night Aegon was - allegedly - conceived).

This isn't sane or rational behavior, not even by Targaryen/Westerosi standards. If you yourself have reasons to believe you have prophetic dreams (because your dreams actually came true and you know this for a fact) or if you talked to some genuine sorceress who can, in a magical ritual, get a picture of the future (like Maggy could) then you would have some justification for your actions. But Rhaegar never did any of that. He just pondered ancient prophecy and the new one of the Ghost and deluded himself into believing he or his son played a role in all of that (when nothing in the prophecies he had access to indicated as much).

Aerion, Daemon II, and Aegon V are much more justified in their actions than Rhaegar ever was - they have the same kind of background as Dany had: a deep inner feeling and knowledge that their plans would work. But Rhaegar never had any of that. He connected ancient text which were open to interpretation with arbitrary events. He was obsessed with the idea that he and his children mattered on the grand scale and were part of some great destiny - and he had no justification for any of that.

Rhaegar didn't do any good with his attempts to fulfill the prophecy. He instead helped to plunge the Realm into a devastating war and to destroy his own dynasty, all but ensuring that the promised prince would either never be born, be killed as a child, or not be an ideal position to do what he or she were supposed to be doing. Any person with so much as the fraction of political sense would have realized that he should have first dealt with the issue of his mad father than messing around with another woman. If he had dealt with Aerys II first and gone through with his Great Council idea perhaps he could have done whatever he wanted to do with Lyanna afterwards.

Rhaegar's actions are anything but responsible. As I said above - his first duties were to his royal family, his family and dynasty, and only then to other things. And none of his duties involved 'saving mankind' or 'preparing the way for the savior of mankind'. That was just presumption and delusion on his part. It would be different if we had reason to believe that Rhaegar had a right to think he was special and had a special destiny - but he didn't have any of that, to our knowledge. Thus we cannot but see his actions as selfish in the same way Robb's decision to marry Jeyne was selfish, how Duncan Targaryen acted selfish when he married his Jenny, etc.

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On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

But most of the other educated Westerosi didn't share their eccentric and self-destructive views. People focus on the misses not on the hits as Alester Florent's talk about Targaryen dragon-hatching madness (and Stannis' desire to continue this) shows.

But the Targaryens weren't "most people".

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

Nobody gave a damn about any danger the Realm was in - that's the entire point. Rhaegar, too, only cared about a promised prince and whatever was attached to that stuff in his mind, but not, you know, to actually prevent whatever war or conflict the promised prince was destined to fight in or to prevent things from getting so worse that a savior will be needed.

But what could he have done? What pre-emptive measures can you take against ice demons who haven't even manifested on the horizon yet? Besides, he was no king yet. TPTWP / the three heads of the dragon may have been the only or best way he had to act. 

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

I use those words because I actually think Rhaegar was a self-involved prince who cared more about his savior complex or whatever caused him to develop the delusion that he and his children were *important* for the future of humanity rather than, you know, learn how to be a good king, how to win great friends among the noblemen who counted (Jon Connington and some Mootons, Whents, and Daynes didn't count). He is essentially another Daemon II Blackfyre. Compared to Mad Aerys II Rhaegar looks shiny and sane, but he wasn't particularly charismatic (Robert was) and he seems to have suffered from depression throughout his entire life.

Now, you see, this is worded really nicely. ;) 

You are all for a realistic view on governing a country, which is fine. That's a totally valid angle the story can be looked at from. There are other angles, though, including the fact that magic is a realistic factor is this world. Rhaegar was no Tywin, that's true, it is very likely that he would never have become a Tywin-like politician (although Tywin wouldn't be the best example of winning great friends either), Rhaegar was of a different metal, and the world needs all sorts of metals. Barristan still thinks he could have been a good king though.

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

For Elia to consider Rhaegar had *noble intentions* she and Rhaegar would have to understand what the promised prince was for exactly. What kind of danger was coming and when. The Targaryens didn't prepare for anything throughout the reign of Aerys II, not while they thought Rhaegar himself was the promised prince, not while Rhaegar thought Aegon was the promised prince. At this point all we can expect Elia to know about the prophecy is that for some reason there is going to be a promised prince been born. And said prince was then born, according to Rhaegar, in Elia's son, Aegon Targaryen.

"The Promised Prince" means nothing if it's just an empty title. Who would care who it is? For some reason several Targaryens over the years have found the concept of "the Promised Prince" important, including Maester Aemon. To me it says that they must have had information we don't have. 

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

Nothing in the prophecy indicates that those so-called dragon heads are supposed to be (half-)siblings. Queen Rhaella and Aerys II were still alive and well and could have more children as well as their son Rhaegar could. But this wasn't even necessary: There were three young Targaryens around in Prince Viserys, Princess Rhaenys, and Prince Aegon. Surely those are enough dragon heads, right? If push came to shove there would still be Rhaegar himself who would only be in his mid-thirties when his son Aegon came of age or even Aerys II and Queen Rhaella.

If Aemon can later consider himself a potential dragon head despite him being just Dany's great-great-granduncle then this is certainly indicates that the prophecy doesn't specify how those dragon heads are supposed to be related to each other... And it is this that gives away Rhaegar's mad 'savior/god complex', his obsession of thinking he is the guy who is going to have to play a pivotal role in all this.

Or it might be just grasping at straws when there are very few Targaryens remaining alive. Of course, it wasn't a prince, but a princess, the three heads of the dragon, maybe just any Targaryens who are still around, etc. Again, we don't know. We can call Rhaegar a moron or we can say that perhaps he had reasons we haven't been told, because if one thing is obvious, it is that there are a lot of things we haven't been told. 

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

There is an ancient prophecy about the promised prince and then there is the more recent one by the dwarf woman specifying the bloodline which is going to bring forth the prince. However, the ancient prophecy is definitely far too vague in its meaning to allow anyone reading to actually properly understand what the hell the promised prince is going to fight against or else people would have been more concerned with Westeros (in Essos) or the Wall and the lands beyond and the Others (in Westeros).

Which seems to be a good reason to focus on TPTWP rather than on the mysterous danger he is supposed to avert. 

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

But again - if the prophecy is true then it will come true no matter what Rhaegar does.

And again - prophecies may be worded conditionally, in which case it makes total sense to try to fulfill or avert the condition. 

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

I dealt with that above - Rhaegar tries to fulfill a prophecy by interpreting it and looking for signs and portents (just as Cersei does the same thing trying to prevent a prophecy from coming true). Aenar Targaryen just left Valyria. His daughter had a prophetic vision about the destruction of Valyria, not a vision about the destruction of House Targaryen. What he did is akin to, say, Rhaegar deliberately deciding to attend or not attend the birth of the promised prince next month. Him being there doesn't change or affect the content of the prophecy - just as the Targaryens being there or not being there had no impact on the Doom that took Valyria.

What Rhaegar and Cersei do would be akin to Aenar trying to prevent or bring about the Doom of Valyria - and we can be sure that neither would have worked had he tried.

Again, the prophecies you mention are unconditional ones.

Besides, apparently Rhaegar wasn't trying to fulfill the prophecy regarding the birth of TPTWP (he thought TPTWP had already been born) but to create the three heads of the dragon, and we don't know how it was built into prophecy lore. I find it hard to believe that all Rhaegar had was a vague prophecy on the birth of a so-called Promised Prince , apparently from his family, which is sure to happen one day, but who knows what would distinguish him from all other princes... Why would he take pains to guess who that person would be or to facilitate anything for him? I find it reasonable that there was something more motivating than that. 

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

Mel tries to make Stannis Azor Ahai in the sense that she creates mock versions of the stuff she read in prophecy. She knows Stannis doesn't have Lightbringer and she knows the two swords she has given him (the one the wildfire ruined and the one with the glamor) are not Lightbringer, yet she thinks it is enough that he staged events and created things that sort of fit with what the ancient text says. This is trying to fulfill a prophecy by reading it as and then treating it like a script.

We know it from Mel's thoughts that she sincerely believes that AA was reborn as Stannis amidst salt and smoke etc., so the prophecy has been fulfilled. What she is trying to do is help him - the prophecy does not say how (and if) AA would find Lightbringer again, so Mel is trying to contribute stuff not included in the prophecy. She knows the sword is not Lightbringer, but she thinks a flaming sword would make other people understand that Stannis is AA. She is using a lie to make something she believes to be the truth easier to see for others. Her mistake is that she believes such a lie is justified and that she isn't questioning her own interpretation of the prophecy. 

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

There is no talk about necessary conditions in this prophecy that we know of. But a true prophecy simply comes true - it takes care of the prophesied event itself as well as of any necessary conditions.

But what if we don't know? We don't know how the three heads of the dragon come into the picture. We know very little about how the prophecies of AA, TPTWP and the dragons are related. I do not mean in the sense of being true prophecies but specifically with regard to wording and any backgorund information that textually links either of them to either or both of the other two - or not. Rhaegar may well have had more information, and his information may or may not have been correct, and even if he had "correct" information, his interpretation may or may not have been correct. This is all possible, but I think it's more complicated than Rhaegar just being an obsessed idiot inventing things and basing his life on those things. That was King Aerys, and GRRM could have written him as the one obsessed with a propehcy to the point of madness. Rhaegar, however, is described by many characters in-world as a very different person. 

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

Dany succeeding at a mad magical ritual does not post hoc justify all the madness the previous Targaryens pulled. That's like saying I'm justfied using a broken watch for a watch because it accurately depicts the time twice a day.

Except that it shows the magic was possible, but no, not necessarily every individual action. 

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

Well, I expect 'the Song of Ice and Fire' is just another fancy name for 'the War for the Dawn'. And, perhaps, for the love story of the fiery dragon queen and Jon Snow.

But then GRRM must have given Rhaegar those words to indicate that he had some idea that TPTWP was to fight for the Dawn, no?

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

The idea that Rhaegar mentioning the Song of Ice and Fire means he actually correctly understood what that meant isn't exactly based on good evidence.

It's indication that Rhaegar linked TPTWP and the War for Dawn. It does not show whether Rhaegar's interpretation was correct or not. 

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

Lyanna wasn't desperately wanting to avoid her marriage to Robert. If she wanted to do that, she would have simply refused to marry Robert. She could have done that.

I'm not so sure of that, but maybe. As I said, it could have happened in a number of ways. In any case, the writer only gives us her misgivings about Robert, and nothing on her more positive thoughts about him. 

On 1/24/2020 at 12:19 AM, Lord Varys said:

If you take this prophecy angle then Rhaegar pretty much controlled everything. He was abducting and fucking (or raping) a minor girl to save the world. And that would be just a silly story.

Yes, and, please, note that GRRM did not choose the story of Rhaegar and Lyanna to be his story. It's only (part of) the background to the actual story, which is presented in vague outlines rather than told. Maybe he shares your opinion. 

(Not central to our discussion, but I don't think Lyanna was considered a minor in her world. The presence of all these "too young girls" in this story is disturbing, but it's hard to decide what to think - either children grow up faster in the world of ASOIAF than in ours or this is a world that is, for some reason, full of pedophiles, and I'm not sure what the literary purpose is.)

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31 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

We can be pretty sure that neither of that was ever the case because no one ever indicated that the prophecy about the promised prince or whatever other ancient scrolls and texts talked about the returned Azor Ahai savior were this concrete, because nobody knowing those texts seems to be aware of the true nature of the threat. Benerro and Melisandre interpret struggle religiously and spiritually, and Rhaegar definitely didn't understand what the war was about, either, or else he and his father and grandfather would have focused much more on the Others and the Wall and the Watch. Marwyn and Aemon don't indicate the prophecy mentions any special circumstances that have to be arranged, either. And Melisandre seems to know the prophecy version of the Targaryens since she also refers to Stannis as the prince that was promised. Yet she doesn't care who Stannis' parents were or other circumstances surrounding his birth.

And unlike Daeron the Drunk, Daemon II Blackfyre, Aerion, Aegon V, and Daenerys there is, at this point, no indication that Rhaegar himself ever had prophetic dreams about dragons and any such things. Rhaegar developed queer notions about his son being a prophesied savior by interpreting ancient texts and connecting them witih natural events that likely meant nothing at all (the comet above KL in the night Aegon was - allegedly - conceived).

This isn't sane or rational behavior, not even by Targaryen/Westerosi standards. If you yourself have reasons to believe you have prophetic dreams (because your dreams actually came true and you know this for a fact) or if you talked to some genuine sorceress who can, in a magical ritual, get a picture of the future (like Maggy could) then you would have some justification for your actions. But Rhaegar never did any of that. He just pondered ancient prophecy and the new one of the Ghost and deluded himself into believing he or his son played a role in all of that (when nothing in the prophecies he had access to indicated as much).

Aerion, Daemon II, and Aegon V are much more justified in their actions than Rhaegar ever was - they have the same kind of background as Dany had: a deep inner feeling and knowledge that their plans would work. But Rhaegar never had any of that. He connected ancient text which were open to interpretation with arbitrary events. He was obsessed with the idea that he and his children mattered on the grand scale and were part of some great destiny - and he had no justification for any of that.

Rhaegar didn't do any good with his attempts to fulfill the prophecy. He instead helped to plunge the Realm into a devastating war and to destroy his own dynasty, all but ensuring that the promised prince would either never be born, be killed as a child, or not be an ideal position to do what he or she were supposed to be doing. Any person with so much as the fraction of political sense would have realized that he should have first dealt with the issue of his mad father than messing around with another woman. If he had dealt with Aerys II first and gone through with his Great Council idea perhaps he could have done whatever he wanted to do with Lyanna afterwards.

Rhaegar's actions are anything but responsible. As I said above - his first duties were to his royal family, his family and dynasty, and only then to other things. And none of his duties involved 'saving mankind' or 'preparing the way for the savior of mankind'. That was just presumption and delusion on his part. It would be different if we had reason to believe that Rhaegar had a right to think he was special and had a special destiny - but he didn't have any of that, to our knowledge. Thus we cannot but see his actions as selfish in the same way Robb's decision to marry Jeyne was selfish, how Duncan Targaryen acted selfish when he married his Jenny, etc.

Neither? I presented only one scenario, not two, so now I'm not sure if my meaning was understood correctly...

Once again, we don't know if it was ancient scrolls or dreams or just a longer version of the prophecy that prompted Rhaegar to act. He is not described as mad or totally full of himself by those who knew him. Notice that GRRM gave us the words of the AA prophecy so we can think about Mel's interpretation of it and decide (with our additonal knowledge) if we agree with her or not. He also gave us the exact words of Cersei's prophecy so we can see and guess where she is making mistakes. So far we haven't had the exact words or the full information on which Rhaegar acted, only vague hints. I wonder why. 

And what do you mean Rhaegar didn't do anything good? He gave us Jon Snow. :P

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20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

But the Targaryens weren't "most people".

The Targaryens are not all obsessed with magic or silly prophecies. Thankfully, some of them were pretty rational.

20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

But what could he have done? What pre-emptive measures can you take against ice demons who haven't even manifested on the horizon yet? Besides, he was no king yet. TPTWP / the three heads of the dragon may have been the only or best way he had to act. 

The Others were there the entire time. He could have asked the wildlings about them. Nothing indicates Rhaegar was ever aware or cared about the danger the promised prince was to fight against.

20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

You are all for a realistic view on governing a country, which is fine. That's a totally valid angle the story can be looked at from. There are other angles, though, including the fact that magic is a realistic factor is this world. Rhaegar was no Tywin, that's true, it is very likely that he would never have become a Tywin-like politician (although Tywin wouldn't be the best example of winning great friends either), Rhaegar was of a different metal, and the world needs all sorts of metals. Barristan still thinks he could have been a good king though.

I'm not comparing Rhaegar to Tywin but to any sane Westerosi politician. He wasn't a Robert, he wasn't a Ned, he wasn't a Tyrion, etc.

And I'm not saying magic shouldn't figure into politics at all - if it is justified. Which it wasn't in this case, especially not allowing magic/prophecy take precedence of the real world challenges House Targaryen faced at the time.

20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

"The Promised Prince" means nothing if it's just an empty title. Who would care who it is? For some reason several Targaryens over the years have found the concept of "the Promised Prince" important, including Maester Aemon. To me it says that they must have had information we don't have.

No, that just means they were interested in that prophecy for some reason - most likely because said prophecy says that the promised prince is going to wake dragons from stone, which would restore their precious dragons to the Targaryens. I mean, you are aware that the dragonriding Targaryens never cared much (or at all) about the promised prince, right (with the possible exception of Aegon and his sisters).

20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

Or it might be just grasping at straws when there are very few Targaryens remaining alive. Of course, it wasn't a prince, but a princess, the three heads of the dragon, maybe just any Targaryens who are still around, etc. Again, we don't know. We can call Rhaegar a moron or we can say that perhaps he had reasons we haven't been told, because if one thing is obvious, it is that there are a lot of things we haven't been told.

Well, Aemon tells us that 'the prince' interpretation is nonsense that crept in with the translation. It is not taked about directly, but chances are that whatever the original language of the prophecy was it talked about a dragon (meant as a human scion of a dragonlord family or House Targaryen). If Aemon (who knew as much or more about the ancient text of the original prophecy as Rhaegar) didn't think those dragon heads had to be (half-)siblings of who he thought was the promised prince then Rhaegar was not exactly justified there, was he? And if Aemon had felt it important that Dany had any (half-)siblings to be her dragon heads then he would have mentioned it there, pointing out that he and Rhaegar were mistaken about that, too.

And as the prophecy now stands - the three dragon heads in ASoIaF (if they will show up in the future) are definitely not Dany's or Jon Snow's half-siblings but either other close relations (aunt-nephew) or (half-brother/half-uncle - if Tyrion were Aerys II's bastard son and one of the dragon heads) or even completely unrelated (like they would be if the dragon heads were turning out to be just Dany's husbands, as Jorah wanted it to be, or very, very distandly related if Aegon (as some Blackfyre scion) or Brown Ben Plumm (as some distant cousin) turned out to be dragonriders and dragon heads that way.

In that sense we can definitely say that Rhaegar was wrong even if he had more detailed prophetic information (for which there is at this point no evidence and in fact some against that).

20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

And again - prophecies may be worded conditionally, in which case it makes total sense to try to fulfill or avert the condition. 

Nothing indicates the prophecy of the promised prince was conditional in the sense that some guy was mentioned who would see to it that the promised prince was born or that he had some companions.

But even if it said that that would still not entitle Rhaegar to decide he was this guy and had to know the prophecy and then consciously try to bring about what was destined to happen no matter what he did.

Rhaegar doesn't seem to have believed in prophecy at all if he felt the need to make it come true. Which is his hubris.

20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

Besides, apparently Rhaegar wasn't trying to fulfill the prophecy regarding the birth of TPTWP (he thought TPTWP had already been born) but to create the three heads of the dragon, and we don't know how it was built into prophecy lore. I find it hard to believe that all Rhaegar had was a vague prophecy on the birth of a so-called Promised Prince , apparently from his family, which is sure to happen one day, but who knows what would distinguish him from all other princes... Why would he take pains to guess who that person would be or to facilitate anything for him? I find it reasonable that there was something more motivating than that.

No indication for that.

20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

We know it from Mel's thoughts that she sincerely believes that AA was reborn as Stannis amidst salt and smoke etc., so the prophecy has been fulfilled. What she is trying to do is help him - the prophecy does not say how (and if) AA would find Lightbringer again, so Mel is trying to contribute stuff not included in the prophecy. She knows the sword is not Lightbringer, but she thinks a flaming sword would make other people understand that Stannis is AA. She is using a lie to make something she believes to be the truth easier to see for others. Her mistake is that she believes such a lie is justified and that she isn't questioning her own interpretation of the prophecy. 

Actually, nothing about the reborn Azor Ahai or the promised prince indicates he would ever wield a new or old version of Lightbringer. That is Mel connecting the new hero with the old one. And when Aemon gives Jon the Jade Compendium the comparison it makes is about the mythical hero's swords, not a sword the new version or Azor Ahai is going to wield.

Nothing in the promised prince version of the prophecy talks about the Lightbringer sword.

But Mel feels Stannis should have something like that and instead of trying to make him a real Lightbringer she gives him two fake swords.

20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

But what if we don't know? We don't know how the three heads of the dragon come into the picture. We know very little about how the prophecies of AA, TPTWP and the dragons are related. I do not mean in the sense of being true prophecies but specifically with regard to wording and any backgorund information that textually links either of them to either or both of the other two - or not. Rhaegar may well have had more information, and his information may or may not have been correct, and even if he had "correct" information, his interpretation may or may not have been correct. This is all possible, but I think it's more complicated than Rhaegar just being an obsessed idiot inventing things and basing his life on those things. That was King Aerys, and GRRM could have written him as the one obsessed with a propehcy to the point of madness. Rhaegar, however, is described by many characters in-world as a very different person. 

Rhaegar is a person who kept to himself and who is construed as to be a dutiful nice guy because he kept apart from most people. Most of the people (but Jon Connington) we hear talking about Rhaeger never knew him intimately.

And we do know the crucial bits about the prophecy. It tells of a promised prince/hero born amidst smoke and salt when there is darkness to be fought. It is not clear whether the bleeding star is to herald the person's birth or his 'coming' (which is a much more loose term, allowing Rhaegar to delude himself into believing the comet in the night of Aegon's conception 'heralded' his coming).

We also know that the waking of dragons from stone is something the promised prince is supposed to do.

That is more than enough to identify the person - but it doesn't tell us anything about what the person is supposed to be doing in this fight against 'darkness' or how it would be defeated.

20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

But then GRRM must have given Rhaegar those words to indicate that he had some idea that TPTWP was to fight for the Dawn, no?

The War for the Dawn doesn't necessarily mean people knew what it was about. If they had they would have prepared for it by strengthening the Watch.

20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

It's indication that Rhaegar linked TPTWP and the War for Dawn. It does not show whether Rhaegar's interpretation was correct or not. 

I'm not so sure of that, but maybe. As I said, it could have happened in a number of ways. In any case, the writer only gives us her misgivings about Robert, and nothing on her more positive thoughts about him.

That isn't the same as her wanting out of that marriage. Especially not by means of destroying another marriage.

20 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

Yes, and, please, note that GRRM did not choose the story of Rhaegar and Lyanna to be his story. It's only (part of) the background to the actual story, which is presented in vague outlines rather than told. Maybe he shares your opinion. 

(Not central to our discussion, but I don't think Lyanna was considered a minor in her world. The presence of all these "too young girls" in this story is disturbing, but it's hard to decide what to think - either children grow up faster in the world of ASOIAF than in ours or this is a world that is, for some reason, full of pedophiles, and I'm not sure what the literary purpose is.)

Lyanna was 13-14 years old in the Year of the False Spring. She died at the age of 16 two years later. She was very much a minor when this whole thing started. Legally she would have still been a minor until she became 16.

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2 hours ago, Julia H. said:

OK, I see your point here. But the situation is a bit more complex, IMO. Aerion wanted to literally become a dragon - what for? Just because - or did he have some noble purpose? The latter is unlikely, given the kind of person he was. We know little of the details of his dream, whether drinking wildfire (a pretty extreme idea) was included in it, whether he had ever had any dreams that had already proved to be prophetic etc.

Aegon wanted dragons in order to achieve a noble purpose - to gain enough power to introduce progressive reforms in Westeros. From a moral viewpoint the idea (regardless of the success of the experiment) can be debated - are you allowed to unleash such a destructive weapon on the world for whatever noble purpose? But it can be reasonably supposed that bringing back dragons was not the only option for him to choose, so taking such a big risk on multiple levels may not have been justified. Then again we don't know what exactly the experiment involved, what knowledge it was based on, what and how went wrong.  

Daemon just wanted the throne for himself. That was not a noble purpose to start a war for, even if he could have been sure that he would win. Also, while he may have started a rebellion on the basis of a dream, it's hard to say that he would not have started one without the dream - maybe at some other time, based on some other idea, because he believed he was entitled to the Iron Throne, dream or not. By the way, his dream came true, only not the way he had thought. 

In Rhaegar's case, the hints we have about the Prince that Was Promised and the Song of Ice and Fire suggest that Rhaegar wanted to fulfill a prophecy whose contents affected the future of his realm, perhaps the whole of mankind. (Granted, if the prophecy only concerned Rhaegar's very personal interests, then it's a totally different story, but it doesn't seem so.) If the prophecy showed the options that (for example) the realm will be destroyed, its inhabitants killed unless TPTWP is born at the right time and has the necessary helpers (the dragon has three heads), and if the prophecy is worded in a way that one of the two options (total destruction or the birth of the three "dragons") will come true, then a responsible future king is more likely to choose to act with the purpose of enabling the birth of said individuals than just ignore the whole thing (since this is a world where true prophecies exist, and the Long Night has happened before). Especally, that this condition seems far less extreme and dangerous to realize than drinking wildfire or hatching actual dragons. If the prophecy turns out to be a total nonsense, what happens? There will be three royal kids, not a big deal. The problem started when it turned out that Elia couldn't give birth to a third child, and Rhaegar had to decide whether to abandon the realization of the condition (and risk the destruction of the realm, the failure of TPTWP etc.) or to pursue it.  

 

You're discussing their motivations and latr the morality of said motivations, which aren't at all relevant to the topic, er're talking about how prophecies and prophetic dreams affect those who have it and how those drag their users into self destruction by trying to act on them.

 

It's not relevamt, like at all, if Aerion was a overall unstable guy or Aegon was pressured by the lords or even why would they want to bring dragons, they believed that their plans were bulletproof because they have been told that a prophecy said that when they were kids (Aerys 1 ) and they had prophetic dreams about them. 

It does not matter if Daemon wanted the Throne, his dreams came true. Ofc he's going to act on them, if you had dreams that regularly came true and then you dream about a lottery ticket, would you not buy one??

 

Those had reasons to be over confident, Rhaegar as far as we know didn't, everyone last one of them were idiots to act on those prophecies they way they did. 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Julia H. said:

OK. I think Elia 1) may have believed in the prophecy, but if she did not, I think there are still two options theoretically, 2) one is to play along for whatever reason and for whatever length of time (it would remind me of Doran), the other is 3) to try everything in her power to stop Rhaegar from pursuing his goal. (By the way, not believing in the prophecy does not necessarily mean thinking it's absolutely nonsense, there is also the attitude "perhaps yes, perhaps not, we'll see".) You don't believe that the second option above is possible, maybe because it doesn't fit your image of Elia, maybe for some other reason. Let's just agree to disagree. 

I think that the "for whatever reason" is the problem, there is no good reason for Elia to accept that arrangement if she wasn't into prophecy, she gains absolutely nothing but humiliation and anger and she stands to lose everything. Comparing that situation with Doran is also absurd, the odds were stacked against Doran, he could not fight without knowing that he would surely lose badly, so he waited for the odds to be on his side. Elia's situation is completely different. I don't believe Elia an idiot, nor was she helpless, only an idiot or a helpless person would agree to that. 

Not believing in prophecy does mean you believe them absolute nonsense, it means that the lenghts you're willilng to go to see them fulfilled are much much lower. 

But who knows she might be so in love that she accepted every bs that came out from Rhaegar's mouth.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Julia H. said:

The geography and the timeline may tell us how much time they needed to gather an army, but it says nothing on whether they indeed started to gather an army as soon as Lyanna disappeared. You are stating that it had to be obvious to everyone in-world that the kidnapping would be followed by war, but then why wasn't it obvious to Brandon? If it was such a 100% casus belli, then why on earth did Brandon want to challenge Rhaegar to single combat, and why did he go to KL to have himself captured as a hostage if it was obvious that the Starks and the Baratheons would now go to war?

Who claimed that "no one cared about Lyanna"? Brandon cared, Ned obviously cared, and I believe Rickard cared as well, Robert, too. Starting a war is not the only thing that takes time - figuring out what to do, getting some reliable information on her whereabouts and the general circumstances would also take time. 

Now, the difference between "kidnapping and raping" and "a hostage": If they simply assumed that Lyanna was kidnapped and raped, but not a potential hostage, then starting a war was definitely not their priority -provided they cared about Lyanna first of all. Will a rapist necessarily keep a rape victim? First they had to make sure that Lyanna was still with Rhaegar / the Targaryens and, if not, to find out where she was, if she was even alive etc. If she was with the Targeryens, that would require different actions than if she was free but lost or ill somewhere or if she was dead. If she was still with the Targaryens, even as a rape victim she was a hostage, unless she had gone with Rhaegar willingly. I'm pretty sure if Rickard had received a message from Rhaegar informing him on Lyanna's whereabouts and inviting him to go there and discuss the situation, there is a good chance that he would have gone there just as he went to KL for Brandon. And who knows, perhaps he would have received such a message if things had happened differently.   

 

They never started to gather an army as soon as Lyanna disappeared nor did i claimed that.,  one of the reasons of that were the timeline, distances and geography, which makes more likely than not that the Eyrie trio found out about the abduction at the same time they found out about Brandon's inprisonment and Aerys summonings. I don't understand the  correlation either, Brandon went to KL because he was blinded  by rage, why the fact that he was blinded by rage and did not think his plan through negates that was was bound to happen??

 

 

Not only they care but they are all of them proud men, there is simply not way in earth Robert would not have revolt over that and the others would simply have followed his lead.

 

 

Or they could've just taken KL and forced Rhaegar to show, because you know, it's unlikely people wants to negotiate with the aggressors and even if Lyanna went willingly, eloping with minor gorls who are bethrothed with powerful people it's an incredibly awful start and something to go war for too. What could they discuss?? How Rhaegar had solied his daughter, how he wanted the Starks to break their word or or.

 

 

3 hours ago, Julia H. said:

I didn't say that I knew it for sure (I keep repeating the disclaimer that all this is speculation, and that's why I'm open to various possibilities). I merely pointed out that blood / bloodline is extremely important in this culture, which might be an explanation either because of what Rhaegar himself came to conclude (and he wouldn't be especially snobbish about it, as the importance of bloodlines affected most aspects of life in that society) or because of something directly included in the prophecy. The "Song of Ice and Fire" comment from Rhaegar is interesting in this respect. If we look at the marriage of a Targaryen and a Martell, it seems like a union between fire and fire (dragons + the Sun). So, as per bloodline, TPWTP would be fire+fire. Rhaegar's daughter would also be fire+fire. Perhaps it seemed a good idea to include a fire+ice person as the third head, once it was clear that the Princess couldn't be the third head's mother, and the Starks have the "iciest" bloodline (right behind the Others). That's just an idea based on the information we have. It is also possible that Lyanna as the KOTLT impressed Rhaegar so much that he thought she was worthy of being the mother of the third head. Elia might have been more comfortable with a commoner girl, but then the child of a commoner girl would have considerable disadvantage in a royal court, and perhaps the dragon also needed balance. 

You refusing it offhand says otherwise, blood and bloodline is important in this culture but it's irrelevant to the prophecy, and ofc it would be completely snobbish, you know that there are a lot of northern highborn maidens in the Nort right, that choosing the most problematic of them all, it's incredibly stupid if you don't have a very specific reason to do that, btw how is that the Starks have the iciest bloddline?? And that there is an incredible gap between a commoner from flea bottom and Lyanna Stark?? If Elia dod not care much about the prophecy, Ltanna was simply a red flag too bright to be ignored.

 Does the dragon need balance?? Well, it seems that Rhaegar had the most specific prophecy ever, that or he was  entitled , arrogant and dellusional... like those whose prick bitten off.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Julia H. said:

That's a valid reason for Elia not to like or accept the situation. Unless there was something really big on the other side of the equation as well. Mind you, I'm not saying there was definitely anything big for her there, again, just pondering the possibilities. 

But weren't we talking about a situation where Elia does not think that?? If you don't believe the end of the world is coming, the arrangement is simply bullshit.

 

3 hours ago, Julia H. said:

Well, "survival of the Lannisters" is understood rather broadly here. And yes, Tywin pretty well fits the definition of a zealot.  

Weak liege, unruly bannermen, overmighty vassals and weak king...

As i said if you want to call him that, you're free to do so, does not change Rhaegar's actions and believes.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Julia H. said:

It seems to me he had doubts at the time and with his speech he was trying to convince himself as well as Davos. If he had been a true fanatic, he would have just gone ahead with the deed long before Davos had the opportunity to spirit the boy away. He seems much more certain about the real enemy after he has arrived at the Wall. 

I'm not saying that Stannis is on the same league of a fanatic, but there would be absolutely no difference between hi killing Edric and Seylse doing it.

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4 hours ago, Julia H. said:

Once again, we don't know if it was ancient scrolls or dreams or just a longer version of the prophecy that prompted Rhaegar to act.

We know from Aemon that Rhaegar knew the same version of the prophecy he knew - and Marwyn tells us he knows of the same prophecy, too. There is no indication that there are shorter and longer versions of this in Westeros.

Sure, there are different versions of this same prophecy in Westeros and Essos - or certain people believe their stories and prophecies and what not are somehow connected, but those are markedly different. The Targaryen/Westerosi version doesn't frame the prophecy religiously but in a noble or monarchistic manner (talking about 'a promised prince' rather than the rebirth/return of the mythological Azor Ahai hero) but there is no indication whatsoever that there are different version of the prophecy as known by various Westerosi scholars.

4 hours ago, Julia H. said:

He is not described as mad or totally full of himself by those who knew him. Notice that GRRM gave us the words of the AA prophecy so we can think about Mel's interpretation of it and decide (with our additonal knowledge) if we agree with her or not. He also gave us the exact words of Cersei's prophecy so we can see and guess where she is making mistakes. So far we haven't had the exact words or the full information on which Rhaegar acted, only vague hints. I wonder why.

We don't have the full text of the various versions of the Azor Ahai prophecies. We only have Melisandre's and Benerro's sermons and talks, not the actual text. Cersei's mistakes come from the interpretation of the prophecy - she thinks 'the younger, more beautiful queen' is Margaery Tyrell despite the fact she actually himself remarks that Margaery is in fact not more beautiful than she is. This is an error of interpretation - just as it is almost certainly an error of interpretation on Rhaegar's part that his son Aegon was the promised prince based on the idea that the comet that was seen above KL in the night of Aegon's conception heralded the arrival of the promised prince (unless you actually assume Aegon is or was the promised prince).

In that sense we already know that Rhaegar was very much mistaken never mind what information he actually had. His crucial scene in the vision of the House of the Undying shows him as being wrong. His son wasn't the promised prince.

It is obvious that there is a lot we don't know about Rhaegar and Lyanna, but it is not very likely that what we are going to learn about Rhaegar is going to portray him as a man who did the right thing for the right reasons. George is not going to to sanctify or redeem a man who played a crucial role in the outbreak of a devastating civil war.

4 hours ago, Julia H. said:

And what do you mean Rhaegar didn't do anything good? He gave us Jon Snow. :P

Ned gave us Jon Snow. Rhaegar would have given us another pompous royal prince who wouldn't have contributed anything to the survival of mankind.

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11 hours ago, Julia H. said:

OK, I see your point here. But the situation is a bit more complex, IMO. Aerion wanted to literally become a dragon - what for? Just because - or did he have some noble purpose? The latter is unlikely, given the kind of person he was. We know little of the details of his dream, whether drinking wildfire (a pretty extreme idea) was included in it, whether he had ever had any dreams that had already proved to be prophetic etc.

Aegon wanted dragons in order to achieve a noble purpose - to gain enough power to introduce progressive reforms in Westeros. From a moral viewpoint the idea (regardless of the success of the experiment) can be debated - are you allowed to unleash such a destructive weapon on the world for whatever noble purpose? But it can be reasonably supposed that bringing back dragons was not the only option for him to choose, so taking such a big risk on multiple levels may not have been justified. Then again we don't know what exactly the experiment involved, what knowledge it was based on, what and how went wrong.  

Daemon just wanted the throne for himself. That was not a noble purpose to start a war for, even if he could have been sure that he would win. Also, while he may have started a rebellion on the basis of a dream, it's hard to say that he would not have started one without the dream - maybe at some other time, based on some other idea, because he believed he was entitled to the Iron Throne, dream or not. By the way, his dream came true, only not the way he had thought. 

In Rhaegar's case, the hints we have about the Prince that Was Promised and the Song of Ice and Fire suggest that Rhaegar wanted to fulfill a prophecy whose contents affected the future of his realm, perhaps the whole of mankind. (Granted, if the prophecy only concerned Rhaegar's very personal interests, then it's a totally different story, but it doesn't seem so.) If the prophecy showed the options that (for example) the realm will be destroyed, its inhabitants killed unless TPTWP is born at the right time and has the necessary helpers (the dragon has three heads), and if the prophecy is worded in a way that one of the two options (total destruction or the birth of the three "dragons") will come true, then a responsible future king is more likely to choose to act with the purpose of enabling the birth of said individuals than just ignore the whole thing (since this is a world where true prophecies exist, and the Long Night has happened before). Especally, that this condition seems far less extreme and dangerous to realize than drinking wildfire or hatching actual dragons. If the prophecy turns out to be a total nonsense, what happens? There will be three royal kids, not a big deal. The problem started when it turned out that Elia couldn't give birth to a third child, and Rhaegar had to decide whether to abandon the realization of the condition (and risk the destruction of the realm, the failure of TPTWP etc.) or to pursue it.   

OK. I think Elia 1) may have believed in the prophecy, but if she did not, I think there are still two options theoretically, 2) one is to play along for whatever reason and for whatever length of time (it would remind me of Doran), the other is 3) to try everything in her power to stop Rhaegar from pursuing his goal. (By the way, not believing in the prophecy does not necessarily mean thinking it's absolutely nonsense, there is also the attitude "perhaps yes, perhaps not, we'll see".) You don't believe that the second option above is possible, maybe because it doesn't fit your image of Elia, maybe for some other reason. Let's just agree to disagree. 

Could be, but the wording does open the door to another interpretation.

The geography and the timeline may tell us how much time they needed to gather an army, but it says nothing on whether they indeed started to gather an army as soon as Lyanna disappeared. You are stating that it had to be obvious to everyone in-world that the kidnapping would be followed by war, but then why wasn't it obvious to Brandon? If it was such a 100% casus belli, then why on earth did Brandon want to challenge Rhaegar to single combat, and why did he go to KL to have himself captured as a hostage if it was obvious that the Starks and the Baratheons would now go to war?

Who claimed that "no one cared about Lyanna"? Brandon cared, Ned obviously cared, and I believe Rickard cared as well, Robert, too. Starting a war is not the only thing that takes time - figuring out what to do, getting some reliable information on her whereabouts and the general circumstances would also take time. 

Now, the difference between "kidnapping and raping" and "a hostage": If they simply assumed that Lyanna was kidnapped and raped, but not a potential hostage, then starting a war was definitely not their priority -provided they cared about Lyanna first of all. Will a rapist necessarily keep a rape victim? First they had to make sure that Lyanna was still with Rhaegar / the Targaryens and, if not, to find out where she was, if she was even alive etc. If she was with the Targeryens, that would require different actions than if she was free but lost or ill somewhere or if she was dead. If she was still with the Targaryens, even as a rape victim she was a hostage, unless she had gone with Rhaegar willingly. I'm pretty sure if Rickard had received a message from Rhaegar informing him on Lyanna's whereabouts and inviting him to go there and discuss the situation, there is a good chance that he would have gone there just as he went to KL for Brandon. And who knows, perhaps he would have received such a message if things had happened differently.   

Possible.

I didn't say that I knew it for sure (I keep repeating the disclaimer that all this is speculation, and that's why I'm open to various possibilities). I merely pointed out that blood / bloodline is extremely important in this culture, which might be an explanation either because of what Rhaegar himself came to conclude (and he wouldn't be especially snobbish about it, as the importance of bloodlines affected most aspects of life in that society) or because of something directly included in the prophecy. The "Song of Ice and Fire" comment from Rhaegar is interesting in this respect. If we look at the marriage of a Targaryen and a Martell, it seems like a union between fire and fire (dragons + the Sun). So, as per bloodline, TPWTP would be fire+fire. Rhaegar's daughter would also be fire+fire. Perhaps it seemed a good idea to include a fire+ice person as the third head, once it was clear that the Princess couldn't be the third head's mother, and the Starks have the "iciest" bloodline (right behind the Others). That's just an idea based on the information we have. It is also possible that Lyanna as the KOTLT impressed Rhaegar so much that he thought she was worthy of being the mother of the third head. Elia might have been more comfortable with a commoner girl, but then the child of a commoner girl would have considerable disadvantage in a royal court, and perhaps the dragon also needed balance. 

That's a valid reason for Elia not to like or accept the situation. Unless there was something really big on the other side of the equation as well. Mind you, I'm not saying there was definitely anything big for her there, again, just pondering the possibilities. 

Well, "survival of the Lannisters" is understood rather broadly here. And yes, Tywin pretty well fits the definition of a zealot.  

It seems to me he had doubts at the time and with his speech he was trying to convince himself as well as Davos. If he had been a true fanatic, he would have just gone ahead with the deed long before Davos had the opportunity to spirit the boy away. He seems much more certain about the real enemy after he has arrived at the Wall. 


 

also just to chime in what what you’re saying- 

 

Another reason why it WOULDNT be apparent that the kidnap would cause war would be the fact that Brandon had the Wolf’s Blood, but not that he was mad.  If he thought was was going to come he would have called the banners.  Which he does NOT. 

 

and again even Rickard Stark DOES NOT CALL THE BANNERS when Brandon is imprisoned.  
 

If you compare this to the War of 5 Kings we look at Tyrion’s abduction.  As soon as Tyrion is abducted Tywin calls the banners and Ned even gives orders to Catelyn to begin amassing men. This is what it looks like when an abduction leads to war. Lyanna’s was not that. 

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On 1/24/2020 at 7:15 PM, Lord Varys said:

That vision wouldn't have been shortly after Harrenhal, but rather months afterwards. Elia wouldn't have gone to Harrenhal if the birth had been close at hand. The vision as such is very neutral - a noble couple talking about their child. Even Stannis and Selyse, Jon and Lysa, and Robert and Cersei would have that kind of conversations. The whole point of such arranged marriages is to produce children to continue the dynasty.

The Harrenhal tourney and the birth had to have occurred within two months.  Harrenhal's tourney occurred during the False Spring.  The False Spring lasted less than two months, then  winter unexpectadly returned shortly before the start of the new year. 

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The False Spring of 281 AC lasted less than two turns.  As the year drew to a close, winter returned with a vengeance.

And Rhaegar left Elia and their child behind and rode out with his six companions at the start of the new year:

Quote

As the cold winds hammered the city, King Aerys II turned to his pyromancers, charging them to drive the winter off with their magics.  Huge green flires burned along the walls of the Red Keep for a moon's turn.  Prince Rhaegar was not in the city to observe them, however.  Nor could he be found in Dragonstone with Princess Elia and their young son, Aegon.  With the coming of the new year, the crown prince had taken to the road with half a dozen of his closest friends and confidants, on a journey that would ultimately lead him back to the riverlands.

Of course the other possibility is that Elia gave birth to Aegon prior to the Harrenhal tourney.    That seems doubtful for a number of reasons.  First Elia nearly lost her life in childbirth, so it seems unlikely that she would have travelled to the Harrenhal tourney soon after that birth (of course it's never stated how long she was bedridden after Aegon's birth, we only know she was bedridden for half a year after her daughter's birth).  The other issue is that Aegon was supposed to still be an infant when he was killed in the Sack.  If she gave birth too long prior to Harrenhal, then it's really pushing the envelope to say that Aegon would still be an infant at the time of the Sack.

So the vision was either within two months after Harrenhal or sometime before Harrenhal.

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