Rhaegar: How do you feel about him?

[Lord Varys]

10 minutes ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

We are told that Brandon rode to KL to confront Rhaegar specifically because he heard that Lyanna was abducted. Do you think he actually was coincidentally riding to KL demanding Rhaegar's head for some other reason? The descriptions we get of what happened while Brandon was in captivity or when Rickard showed up are very vague and focused on the trial/execution. We don't know that Lyanna wasn't mentioned and I don't think it's a safe assumption to make with the few details we have. In any case, it wouldn't be that surprising to me if Lyanna took a back seat given that Rickard's #1 priority was presumably saving his the life of his eldest son (and heir), who was arrested and charged with a capital crime by an insane king. Making demands about Lyanna while Brandon's safety (not to mention his own) was at risk could be pretty dangerous when he's dealing with Aerys Targaryen.

I think TWoIaF basically gave us all the pieces to resolve the mystery of execution of the Starks and the command to execute Ned and Robert.

We do know that the Mad King and his advisers feared that Lord Rickard and Rhaegar were plotting against the king. They interpreted Lyanna's coronation not as the gesture of a lovestruck prince but as an overture to Rickard Stark, a sign they were in cahoots plotting against the king.

And it actually makes sense that Rhaegar would have approached Lord Rickard at Harrenhal - or may have planned to do that while he still wanted it to be an informal Great Council - because Rickard was singularly well-connected with many great houses of the Realm: his heir would marry Catelyn Tully, his daughter the Lord of Storm's End, and his second son was close friends with Jon Arryn. If Rhaegar could convince Lord Rickard that the king's state of mind was endangering the Realm and they had to do something, then many a lord at such an informal Great Council may have followed his lead - and that could have given Rhaegar the votes of the North, Hoster Tully (and the men following him), Jon Arryn (and his men), and Robert Baratheon and his people.

In light of that, it stands to reason that Aerys II wouldn't have believed that Rhaegar had abducted Lyanna or taken her against her will or the will of her lord father and brother. Instead, the king would have seen this as another 'confirmation' of their conspiracy and would have seen Brandon's complaints and anger as a ruse to distract and confuse him and obfuscate the true intention of the conspirators.

In that light, it also makes sense as to why Aerys II would demand that the fathers of Brandon and his companions show up, why those men would be tried, too, and why, in the end, Aerys II would also issue orders to executed Ned and Robert.

None of those things make sense if Aerys II were just reacting to Brandon threatening Rhaegar - a prince who was under suspicion of treason himself. Instead, if Aerys II had believed Brandon's grievances with Rhaegar were genuine - if he had believed Rhaegar actually had abducted Lyanna Stark - he would have likely feasted Brandon, being full of joy that he finally had the pretext to disinherit, arrest, and possibly execute his ingrate heir. Or at least give Brandon Stark the opportunity to slay Rhaegar in a duel.

In that sense, I think Aerys II, not believing in Brandon's story and getting more and more paranoid, called in the fathers because he believed they were part of the conspiracy, too. They were executed not because they were 'found guilty as such' but because they refused to confess their crimes. Keep in mind Rickard demanded a trial-by-combat meaning he, too, stood accused of a crime. A crime about which we don't know anything at this point. Such an approach also helps us to explain why Ethan Glover, Brandon's squire, survived those trials - he may have been the one who broke under torture and confirmed all the king's suspicions, accusing Rickard and Brandon and the others of conspiring with Rhaegar against the king.

One can also parallel this with Rhaenyra's command to execute Nettles - this wasn't a command to prevent further treason, but a command to punish a person she already considered a traitor (because she believed she was sleeping with her husband). Similarly, I think Aerys II wanted Ned and Robert dead because he thought they were also part of the Rhaegar-Rickard conspiracy.

And Rhaegar and Lyanna had to disappear after all that because, before Robert, Jon, and Ned started the real rebellion, the king thought they were already rebelling against him. This would also help to explain why Robert's Rebellion wasn't crushed quickly - because the king was looking for Rhaegar during the first weeks and saw things in the Vale just as a side show, a distraction of the real danger posed by Rhaegar.

Eventually they would have realized that they were terribly wrong in all this, but this may have taken quite some time.

[ATaleofSalt&Onions]

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Rhaegar was also obsessed with prophecy, but nothing indicates that prophecy demanded he marry a particular woman, ever. Elia was nothing special and yet she was, in Rhaegar's mind, the mother of the promised prince.

I agree with most of your post, and I'm not even disagreeing with this part per se, but I do think it's interesting that Rhaegar believed his song was TPTWP whose song was the "song of ice and fire" and ended up running off with Lyanna Stark and almost certainly having a child with her. We know that the alliance and marriage agreement made by Cregan Stark and Rhaenyra/Jacaerys during the Dance is known in-universe as the "Pact of Ice and Fire," so the thematic metaphor of Starks and Targaryens as "Ice and Fire" isn't purely an out-of-universe framing projected by readers. I thus wouldn't rule out the possibility that Rhaegar could have eventually made a connection there and come to believe that he actually needed to have a child with Lyanna Stark to fulfill the prophecy. The timing of that would interesting, however. He believed Aegon was TPTWP after he was born, which was after Harrenhal, so this wouldn't explain his actions at the Tourney at all. Did anything happen afterwards that may have changed his mind? IIRC in the world book it's said that he left Dragonstone shortly after Aegon's birth to embark on a journey that eventually led him to the Riverlands, where he abducted/ran off with Lyanna Stark. The Riverlands don't appear to be the initial destination given that wording, but I wonder if it's possible that he met with the Ghost of High Heart on this trip before the whole thing with Lyanna went down.

5 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And the really interesting question is what the hell she thought about the Rebellion, about Rhaegar standing with his mad dad, about Rhaegar and Robert clashing at the Trident, about Rhaegar possibly killing her other brother(s) after his father already murdered her father and older brother.

I cannot but wonder whether Lya was in that tower to prevent her from betraying Rhaegar and House Targaryen. Because I don't see a woman with Arya's character ever getting so love sick that she would allow her lover/husband to save Mad Aerys from his deserved fate or stand idly by while her lover/husband fights and possibly kills her (former) betrothed and brother.

I'm 100% with you on this. What Lyanna thought about everything that happened is one of the most interesting questions of the backstory to me. I think she went with Rhaegar willingly, but how did her feelings change as events progressed? Was there a big delay in her finding out about things like Brandon being taken prisoner, the execution of him and Rickard, and the war breaking out? Did she become pregnant before or after this? Assuming she became pregnant with Jon roughly around the same time that Robb was conceived, that's quite a bit of time passing since Brandon's arrest. What was she expecting would happen in the Rebellion, and what was she hoping would happen? Given that Rhaegar and Ned were fighting on opposite sides, the chances of both of them surviving were not good, especially without Rhaegar making a move against his father (prior to the Battle of the Trident especially, because even if Rhaegar did intend to make his father stand aside had he won, which his convo with Jaime might imply, there's no way he could guarantee Ned's safety during the battle, or possibly in the aftermath as long as Aerys was alive and in power). How did she reconcile that? Did she in fact turn against Rhaegar, as you speculate? Per Ned, her final wish was to be buried at Winterfell alongside Brandon and their father, did she come to completely regret her and Rhaegar's actions and their consequences? How did she feel about Rhaegar at the end? She obviously couldn't have wanted the Kingsguard to try to kill Ned, and the Kingsguard obviously felt their duty compelled them otherwise, regardless of her wishes. Was it a complete hostage situation by that point? Had Ned died too, would she have blamed Rhaegar for it? If she had survived, what would she have wanted to do? If the Kingsguard tried to force her to do something she didn't want to do, how would she have reacted? If she had survived and Rhaegar had won, what would she have wanted to do in that scenario?

I know there's a ton of questions there, and they're 95% rhetorical. I don't have any answers and there's not a whole lot of info to speculate based on besides what we know about her character and the bits and pieces we got of her and Ned at the ToJ, so I don't expect answers to these questions out of anyone besides George, but I'd welcome you or anyone else taking a guess at any of these if you want.

[ATaleofSalt&Onions]

11 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And Rhaegar and Lyanna had to disappear after all that because, before Robert, Jon, and Ned started the real rebellion, the king thought they were already rebelling against him. This would also help to explain why Robert's Rebellion wasn't crushed quickly - because the king was looking for Rhaegar during the first weeks and saw things in the Vale just as a side show, a distraction of the real danger posed by Rhaegar.

Eventually they would have realized that they were terribly wrong in all this, but this may have taken quite some time.

This could explain Aerys's actions towards the Starks (and Robert and Jon Arryn) in the early stages. Still leaves some questions for me regarding his thoughts and actions towards Rhaegar. Did he initially think Rhaegar was with Lyanna at all? If so, why? Did he try to have Rhaegar hunted down before he sent Gerold Hightower to get him? Did he already know where Rhaegar was at that point or did Hightower have to do some work to find out? Why was he alone? Why did he stay at the ToJ afterwards (Rhaegar's orders wouldn't supersede Aerys, so at the very least Aerys had to be ok with him staying there even if it wasn't his idea)? Why did Aerys grant Rhaegar command over the army?

I don't know that this is necessary to explain why the Rebellion wasn't crushed quickly - there's no standing army, the majority of 4 regions were on the side of the rebels, Tywin and the Iron Islands stayed neutral, and Dorne was apparently slow to mobilize and send help, supposedly over anger at how Elia was being treated. That leaves just the Reach (who beat Robert at Ashford and then for the most part went to besiege Storm's End), plus the Crownlands (which are fairly weak) and the minority loyalists in the Vale, Riverlands, and Stormlands.

[Lord Varys]

12 minutes ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

I agree with most of your post, and I'm not even disagreeing with this part per se, but I do think it's interesting that Rhaegar believed his song was TPTWP whose song was the "song of ice and fire" and ended up running off with Lyanna Stark and almost certainly having a child with her. We know that the alliance and marriage agreement made by Cregan Stark and Rhaenyra/Jacaerys during the Dance is known in-universe as the "Pact of Ice and Fire," so the thematic metaphor of Starks and Targaryens as "Ice and Fire" isn't purely an out-of-universe framing projected by readers. I thus wouldn't rule out the possibility that Rhaegar could have eventually made a connection there and come to believe that he actually needed to have a child with Lyanna Stark to fulfill the prophecy. The timing of that would interesting, however. He believed Aegon was TPTWP after he was born, which was after Harrenhal, so this wouldn't explain his actions at the Tourney at all. Did anything happen afterwards that may have changed his mind? IIRC in the world book it's said that he left Dragonstone shortly after Aegon's birth to embark on a journey that eventually led him to the Riverlands, where he abducted/ran off with Lyanna Stark. The Riverlands don't appear to be the initial destination given that wording, but I wonder if it's possible that he met with the Ghost of High Heart on this trip before the whole thing with Lyanna went down.

This 'ice and fire' is poetic language. Yandel even gives us an explanation why 'the World of Ice and Fire' is known as such - because the Long Night brought ice, and the Doom brought fire into the world.

That Pact of Ice and Fire thing is a poetic name for a political marriage alliance that is supposed to allude to the Lyanna-Rhaegar thing, just as Jacaerys Velaryon's alleged affair/marriage with Sara Snow is, too. And of course the 'ice and fire' thing isn't something the readers alone came up with - the Starks are living in the North and some of them are seen as cold and unyielding and all that, just as many Targaryens have a fiery personality (but not all of them - Aegon III was a very cold fish, and Rhaegar, too, perhaps) - but my take on the overall grand metaphysical meaning of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' title is ice as death/the Others against the life, warmth, love, passion symbolized by fire. It is not so much the dragons against the Others, it is the dragons and living people against the ice demons and their zombies.

While we don't know where Rhaegar got the phrase 'song of ice and fire' it stands to reason that this part of the original promised prince prophecy which lays out who that guy is and what he is going to do. And Rhaegar believed he himself was the promised prince (likely fed the idea and given the prophecy by his parents who made sense of their own forced marriage that way) and that his son Aegon without any of them having anything to do with Stark women.

But, sure, there is a chance that Rhaegar may have made the dwarf woman during his journey leading him to the Riverlands (although High Heart wouldn't have been his original destination since he only eventually went back to the Riverlands) and she may have had some impact on his decision to turn to Lyanna. Perhaps the last straw. A prophecy-believing fool like Rhaegar should be easily influenced if the woman who created him (by convincing his grandfather to force his parents to marry each other) told him that Lyanna Stark *would be* the mother of his next child.

I don't think it makes sense at this point to imagine Rhaegar changed his mind again about who the promised prince was. The vision has him saying there needs to be another dragon head, so that's sufficient motivation for him to want to have another child with another woman. Even if Jon Snow *were* the promised prince and the only version of that figure (and the three dragon heads stuff doesn't mean they are savior triad or something like that) then we should not necessarily expect George is going to give Rhaegar the satisfaction to tell him that means of some seer telling him all that in advance. The Ghost of High Heart doesn't run around to tell people what's going to happen. She has dreams that come true and talks about them, and perhaps she even has other means to foretell stuff, but I don't see that woman as a wise adviser who puts people on the right track. There is nothing of that in the character we meet in ASoS.

In relation to Lya, the best way to make sense of that as it stands is that they may have realized they were in love - perhaps even had a fling or an affair, exchanged kisses, talked away the night, etc. - but chose to go their separate ways at the end of the tourney. In my personal opinion Rhaegar would have been the one willing to throw away everything for Lya there - the throne, his family, the Realm, etc. - because he didn't want to be dutiful son and prince anymore. But she would have insisted to marry Robert and force him to go back to his wife. The coronation would have been his last ditch effort to change her mind - or fitting way to publicly show how he felt.

But then Aegon is born and he is a boy, 'confirming' Rhaegar's belief that the comet in the night of his conception 'meant something'. With Elia not being able to produce another child and Rhaegar strangely believing he has to produce all those dragon heads (why he didn't think Viserys, Aegon, and Rhaenys were three heads I don't know, although I actually don't believe he counted Rhaenys at all, I think he thought they would all be male, then it would be Viserys, Aegon, and the third one that still had to be conceived) he can only think of Lyanna being the mother of that third head.

12 minutes ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

I'm 100% with you on this. What Lyanna thought about everything that happened is one of the most interesting questions of the backstory to me. I think she went with Rhaegar willingly, but how did her feelings change as events progressed? Was there a big delay in her finding out about things like Brandon being taken prisoner, the execution of him and Rickard, and the war breaking out? Did she become pregnant before or after this? Assuming she became pregnant with Jon roughly around the same time that Robb was conceived, that's quite a bit of time passing since Brandon's arrest. What was she expecting would happen in the Rebellion, and what was she hoping would happen? Given that Rhaegar and Ned were fighting on opposite sides, the chances of both of them surviving were not good, especially without Rhaegar making a move against his father (prior to the Battle of the Trident especially, because even if Rhaegar did intend to make his father stand aside had he won, which his convo with Jaime might imply, there's no way he could guarantee Ned's safety during the battle, or possibly in the aftermath as long as Aerys was alive and in power). How did she reconcile that? Did she in fact turn against Rhaegar, as you speculate? Per Ned, her final wish was to be buried at Winterfell alongside Brandon and their father, did she come to completely regret her and Rhaegar's actions and their consequences? How did she feel about Rhaegar at the end? She obviously couldn't have wanted the Kingsguard to try to kill Ned, and the Kingsguard obviously felt their duty compelled them otherwise, regardless of her wishes. Was it a complete hostage situation by that point? Had Ned died too, would she have blamed Rhaegar for it? If she had survived, what would she have wanted to do? If the Kingsguard tried to force her to do something she didn't want to do, how would she have reacted? If she had survived and Rhaegar had won, what would she have wanted to do in that scenario?

I know there's a ton of questions there, and they're 95% rhetorical. I don't have any answers and there's not a whole lot of info to speculate based on besides what we know about her character and the bits and pieces we got of her and Ned at the ToJ, so I don't expect answers to these questions out of anyone besides George, but I'd welcome you or anyone else taking a guess at any of these if you want.

I think chances are that they honeymoon was rather short. And I also don't think it very likely that she wanted to go with Rhaegar. If she had wanted to go then they could have arranged it so that nobody could misconstrue it as an abduction - say, by Lya running away and them hooking up at a previously agreed meeting place. There would still be a possible of them being caught or overseen, but not something alongside Rhaegar abducting Lya 'at swordpoint'. Instead, I guess it was indeed something along the lines Dany wishes Daario would do to her shortly before her own marriage in ADwD.

Depending how much time passed between the abduction and the trials they would have had a very short time together - and I also think if there was a marriage there it would have taken place around that time, because I cannot see Lyanna agreeing to marry the son of the murderer of her father and brother after she knew about that. Nor do I see Rhaegar pushing Lya to marry him under those circumstance. I also don't see any reason to believe all those weird ideas people have about there being 'a secret marriage' or them wanting their marriage to keep secret if it took place. Rhaegar was defying convention and common sense with this entire thing, and she was, too, so they would have owned that, not gone about like two horny children afraid of their parents.

I expect that Rhaegar and Lyanna went to a place where Rhaegar had friends, and my best bet is Maidenpool where his former squire Myles Mooton lived, and they married there at Jonquil's Pool, as if they were Florian and Jonquil. With the status of their relationship unclear so far, there is no need for us to believe they would have to have been married in secret if they were married. It is never addressed what exactly Rhaegar and Lyanna were to each other, legally or emotionally speaking. This also would help to explain why Ned thought he had to disguise Lya's son as his own bastard and didn't decide to make him Lya's bastard. We can understand why Robert may see a (sort of) trueborn son of Rhaegar's a threat to his reign and an object of his hate, but a mere bastard wouldn't fit those criteria. If nobody had known Rhaegar and Lyanna were married (i.e. in a 'secret marriage scenario') Ned could have still pretender they hadn't been married, allowing him to be honest at least who the parents of 'Jon Snow' were. But he didn't do that - which could imply Rhaegar and Lyanna married publicly if they were married.

And once news of that reached court and the Realm at large, people would have been angrier, and Aerys II would have wanted to arrest Rhaegar, causing him and Lyanna to run away - most likely not by disappearing into the countryside but by ship. The destination would be Starfall where they could sneak in coming from the sea and hide with the family of Rhaegar's best friend, Arthur Dayne (who, with Oswell Whent, would have likely accompanied them).

If they had hidden in the countryside Varys would have found them in fortnight or a month.

I expect Jon to be older than Robb (Ned would have obscured the birthdate of his bastard so people would not suspect his child to be Lyanna's child by Rhaegar), but it definitely must have taken some time until Lya got pregnant.

Once news about the deaths of Rickard and Brandon spread, and the war started, Lya would likely not be happy with all that. In fact, it strikes me right now for the first time ever that I might have figured out why the tower of joy might be tower of joy - what if Rhaegar and Lyanna were at Starfall when they learned the news about the war and stuff, and they quarreled and quarreled, and Lya got angry and ... did the Arya thing, and ran away. She could have gotten as far as the Prince's Pass and that old tower until Rhaegar and his buddies caught up with her. For Rhaegar the tower would then be 'the tower of joy' because he found her there ... and because they realized she was pregnant there.

The decision to leave her there and not take her with him or sent her to some other place or use her as a mediator/envoy with the rebels could indicate she had a strong opinion on the Rebellion, i.e. was in complete support of Robert and Ned and wanted to see Aerys II's head on a spike. Something Rhaegar, for whatever reason, was not willing to do. If they had been on the same page it is very odd Rhaegar didn't bring her to the Trident to try to find a peaceful solution.

Many people make much about the rose petals in Lya's hands in Ned's dream memories. But they are dead and black and could thus also symbolize the death of her love for Rhaegar. They could have parted on very bad terms, with Lya, perhaps, only rediscovering what she felt for him after she learned that he was dead.

The Kingsguard attacking Ned and company implicitly confirm (unless you have very obscure and weird views) that they were there to guard her and her (unborn) child and did not feel at liberty to allow Lya's brother inside. It also indicates they did not accept any commands from Lyanna herself despite the fact that Rhaegar and Aerys II were dead and Lya as mother to this royal child could have exerted some authority over them.

55 minutes ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

This could explain Aerys's actions towards the Starks (and Robert and Jon Arryn) in the early stages. Still leaves some questions for me regarding his thoughts and actions towards Rhaegar. Did he initially think Rhaegar was with Lyanna at all? If so, why? Did he try to have Rhaegar hunted down before he sent Gerold Hightower to get him? Did he already know where Rhaegar was at that point or did Hightower have to do some work to find out? Why was he alone? Why did he stay at the ToJ afterwards (Rhaegar's orders wouldn't supersede Aerys, so at the very least Aerys had to be ok with him staying there even if it wasn't his idea)? Why did Aerys grant Rhaegar command over the army?

I'd expect he knew Lyanna and Rhaegar were together, and the idea would have been that Rickard wanted Rhaegar to marry Lyanna in exchange for Rickard's support in 'the conspiracy'. Or he just threw Lya at Rhaegar like so many men had thrown their wives and daughters and sisters at Aerys II in his youth - he had dozens of mistresses, after all.

How the court realized they were wrong is unclear, but they must have learned that by the time Jon Connington was named Hand - who was chosen instead of Rhaegar when the king couldn't find him. I can see that happening in a number of independent ways - reports by Varys that those new rebels also want to see Rhaegar dead and no indication that Rhaegar and Lyanna joined the rebels in the Vale/Stormlands, reports/confessions by Rhaegar's friends Jon Connington and Myles Mooton that the entire thing had nothing to do with a conspiracy against the king conducted by Rhaegar.

One can also imagine that one or two of the cronies of Aerys II were burned for their role in 'pitting father against son'. Could very well be that Lord Symond Staunton met his end there.

I expect by the time Ser Gerold was sent to find Rhaegar (after the Battle of the Bells) they knew pretty much where he was. I don't see Ser Gerold running around like Brienne searching for Sansa. My answer as to why Ser Gerold stayed with Lya is that he chose to follow Rhaegar's request to do so or volunteered for the deed because he did no longer serve with the Mad King directly. If he had wanted to return to court he could have done so whatever Rhaegar wanted of him - if push came to shove he could have just feigned to stay there only to follow a day's ride behind Rhaegar himself.

What happened between Rhaegar and his father after Rhaegar returned to court is a huge question mark at this point. There must have been some discussion and reconciliation. Rhaegar clearly did still not intend to harm or even kill his father - else he would have joined the rebels, and he was also not willing to stage a coup before dealing with the rebels despite the fact that being in command of the army would have given the power to do so.

How this fits together is difficult to say. My best guess is that Rhaegar very much loved his father and Aerys II his son - despite all the madness, those core feelings may have remained, especially in whatever lucid moments the old man had left.

55 minutes ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

I don't know that this is necessary to explain why the Rebellion wasn't crushed quickly - there's no standing army, the majority of 4 regions were on the side of the rebels, Tywin and the Iron Islands stayed neutral, and Dorne was apparently slow to mobilize and send help, supposedly over anger at how Elia was being treated. That leaves just the Reach (who beat Robert at Ashford and then for the most part went to besiege Storm's End), plus the Crownlands (which are fairly weak) and the minority loyalists in the Vale, Riverlands, and Stormlands.

We know that Merryweather was so ineffective in the beginning that he was sent into exile for his failure. The approach to call on local lords to arrest their/defeat their own liege lords (done both in the Vale and the Stormlands) could indicate that the real focus of the Crown was on other matters - finding Rhaegar who they thought was 'the true head' of that rebellion and that it would end as soon as they captured him.

If they had grasped what was going on then they would have immediately assembled an army in the Crownlands with the support of the Targaryen loyalists in the Riverlands (Whents, Darrys, Mootons) and march them down to the Stormlands to crush Robert there after he left the Vale. Getting troops to the Vale would be difficult and could wait.

[ATaleofSalt&Onions]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

This 'ice and fire' is poetic language. Yandel even gives us an explanation why 'the World of Ice and Fire' is known as such - because the Long Night brought ice, and the Doom brought fire into the world.

Yeah, sure, agreed on all that. My point is just that there's in-universe precedent for a Stark-Targaryen union being described as "ice and fire" and I was just saying that it's possible Rhaegar may have had a realization about this at some point.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The Ghost of High Heart doesn't run around to tell people what's going to happen.

To be clear, I wasn't saying that the Ghost of High Heart would necessarily have to explicitly tell him that he and Lyanna would have a son who would become TPTWP for Rhaegar to form that belief. I'm not even saying that Jon would actually have to be TPTWP for this to be the case. I could easily see a scenario where the Ghost says something cryptic that causes Rhaegar to draw that conclusion when it's actually more ambiguous and could be interpreted another way. And it is also possible that she just said something that caused Rhaegar to think Lyanna would be the mother of the third head and he didn't change his mind about TPWTP at all. I just think it's intriguing enough that Rhaegar says TPTWP has a "song of ice and fire" and ends up having a child with Lyanna Stark to consider the possibility.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

I think chances are that they honeymoon was rather short. And I also don't think it very likely that she wanted to go with Rhaegar. If she had wanted to go then they could have arranged it so that nobody could misconstrue it as an abduction - say, by Lya running away and them hooking up at a previously agreed meeting place.

Tough to say without more info, but if Rhaegar has this realization only during his time in the Riverlands, then him and Lyanna wouldn't have had a plan ahead of time. Of course, you could still come up with scenarios where Rhaegar sends a messenger instead or something, but it's just hard to say without knowing more particulars.

I do lean toward Rhaegar and Lyanna marrying because I think it explains a lot about Jon, the ToJ, and presents Martin with too many thematic and narrative opportunities to pass up, but I don't really have any firm beliefs about the logistics of it. But if they were publicly married and this was widely known, you'd think that would have been mentioned by now.

Jon could be older than Robb, but if he is I think it must be not by much so the point about him being conceived roughly around the same time holds IMO.

Based on what we know about Lyanna, I can't imagine she wouldn't have wanted Aerys's head on a spike after he killed Brandon and Rickard. And I can't imagine she would have been in favor of Rhaegar fighting a battle against another brother. So I think at a minimum there had to be some disagreement there, and I'm interested to know how exactly that affected their relationship and Lyanna's feelings towards the entire situation there.

As to the stuff about Rhaegar and Aerys, I remain pretty agnostic about it. But one thing worth mentioning is that at the ToJ the KG play up their honor and loyalty and tell Ned that Aerys would still sit on the Iron Throne if they had been at the Trident. So I struggle to fit that with theories where they essentially turn cloak to Rhaegar, explicitly or not.

As far as crushing Robert early, maybe, but the Crownlands are pretty weak and the loyalists in the Riverlands may have hesitated to leave their lands undefended after Aerys had just killed the fiance of Hoster Tully's daughter (and for that matter, that could be a reason to not leave the capital undefended). Not saying you're wrong, but I think there's a few possible explanations there (including convenience for the author).

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

Yeah, sure, agreed on all that. My point is just that there's in-universe precedent for a Stark-Targaryen union being described as "ice and fire" and I was just saying that it's possible Rhaegar may have had a realization about this at some point.

Considering the time line would indicate that Elia was already pregnant with Aegon during Harrenhal, meaning he already saw the comet which convinced him this unborn child would be the promised prince whose song is the song of ice and fire chances are pretty low he ever thought in such categories or saw Jacaerys-Sara or Jacaerys' nonexistent daughter and Rickon Stark as a parallel of himself and Lyanna. Assuming he knew about that obscure little detail of the Dance of the Dragons.

Even if he saw such a connection he probably didn't connect it to the prophecy of the promised prince. That guy would have the song of ice and fire, he would not be created by ice and fire in the sense of 'ice' being a Stark and 'fire' a Targaryen.

2 hours ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

To be clear, I wasn't saying that the Ghost of High Heart would necessarily have to explicitly tell him that he and Lyanna would have a son who would become TPTWP for Rhaegar to form that belief. I'm not even saying that Jon would actually have to be TPTWP for this to be the case. I could easily see a scenario where the Ghost says something cryptic that causes Rhaegar to draw that conclusion when it's actually more ambiguous and could be interpreted another way. And it is also possible that she just said something that caused Rhaegar to think Lyanna would be the mother of the third head and he didn't change his mind about TPWTP at all. I just think it's intriguing enough that Rhaegar says TPTWP has a "song of ice and fire" and ends up having a child with Lyanna Stark to consider the possibility.

I don't discout the possibility that the Ghost and Rhaegar met directly and talked, but I'd be very surprised if that actually influenced Rhaegar's decision. We have everything without such a talk that's necessary for things to get going. Lyanna at Harrenhal, Aegon being born, the need for a third head, and Elia unable to carry more children.

It is certainly possible that there is another layer to the prophecy and Rhaegar's motivation there but I'd not count on it since he already has a lot of motivations to do what he did. Love and prophecy already are his motivations, as far as we can guess, there is no need for even more prophecies.

Although, well, perhaps he was told that fire and blood (in the sense of a bloody war) are necessary for things to unfold as 'they are supposed to'. After all, if the Ghost or somebody else foresaw the births of Dany and Jon they were conceived and born amidst blood and fire. Perhaps Rhaegar wouldn't have done what he did if he hadn't known or believed that this was necessary. But, honestly, that would be too much prophecy for my taste.

2 hours ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

Tough to say without more info, but if Rhaegar has this realization only during his time in the Riverlands, then him and Lyanna wouldn't have had a plan ahead of time. Of course, you could still come up with scenarios where Rhaegar sends a messenger instead or something, but it's just hard to say without knowing more particulars.

Since it seems Lya may have remained at Harrenhal as guest of the Whents chances are that Rhaegar should have been able to get to Lya easily enough - he could just go through Oswell and Lord Walter himself as he did with the tourney. And if she had been willing to go to him they should have been arranged that, too. I mean, even if Brandon left a contingent of Stark guards with her - the Whents could have just detained them in the castle, allowing Lya to go outside to meet Rhaegar or escorting her directly to him.

2 hours ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

I do lean toward Rhaegar and Lyanna marrying because I think it explains a lot about Jon, the ToJ, and presents Martin with too many thematic and narrative opportunities to pass up, but I don't really have any firm beliefs about the logistics of it. But if they were publicly married and this was widely known, you'd think that would have been mentioned by now.

One can be of that opinion - but then, if you look at the books, nobody does mention anything concrete about Rhaegar and Lyanna's relationship, especially not what exactly they were to each other. And if you think how, say, Wyman Manderly or Theon or Asha would talk about Ramsay and Jeyne (who were legally married) then we can be reasonably certain that they might also refer to Ramsay as a rapist. Just as Robert who hated Rhaegar with a passion might refer to Rhaegar knowing fully well that he and Lyanna were married but interpreting it as a forced marriage.

The point to really judge this is when somebody finally talks about what Rhaegar and Lyanna were - or rather: what the average Westerosi person at the time would have known about them.

2 hours ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

Jon could be older than Robb, but if he is I think it must be not by much so the point about him being conceived roughly around the same time holds IMO.

Oh they could be half a year or more apart if you think about the whole 'bastards grow faster than trueborn children' thing. That's not seen just psychologically but also physically as, I think, 12-year-old Joffrey being taller than 14-year-old Jon and Robb is supposed to indicate.

People knowing Jon Snow for a bastard wouldn't wonder that he was a larger baby than Robb Stark who was supposed to roughly the same age.

Chances are not that good that Jon and Robb were conceived at the same time since chances are very bad that nine+ months passed between the Battle of the Bells and Ned's visit to tower of joy. That would mean 7-8 months lie between the Battle of the Bells and the Trident, meaning the Rebellion is a war lasting a year where nothing happened for 7-8 months. That doesn't really work all that well. Even more so as Cat clearly remembers Ned rode to war immediately after they had conceived Robb - where the hell did he ride if he rode to Stoney Sept before his marriage? What he did he do for over half a year? Sit in some camp?

2 hours ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

Based on what we know about Lyanna, I can't imagine she wouldn't have wanted Aerys's head on a spike after he killed Brandon and Rickard. And I can't imagine she would have been in favor of Rhaegar fighting a battle against another brother. So I think at a minimum there had to be some disagreement there, and I'm interested to know how exactly that affected their relationship and Lyanna's feelings towards the entire situation there.

Yeah, one hopes that this is going to be the main focus of the Lyanna-Rhaegar story when it is told in detail. I actually like my idea pretty much that she may have tried to run away, perhaps not only once but a couple of times. And Rhaegar may have kept her with those Kingsguard because he wanted to prevent that her unborn dragon head child ended in the hands of the rebels and thus would never know 'his destiny'. Could also be that Lya didn't like those prophecy nonsense ideas and part of her issues were that she did not want her children to be brainwashed into believing they were prophesied saviors.

2 hours ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

As to the stuff about Rhaegar and Aerys, I remain pretty agnostic about it. But one thing worth mentioning is that at the ToJ the KG play up their honor and loyalty and tell Ned that Aerys would still sit on the Iron Throne if they had been at the Trident. So I struggle to fit that with theories where they essentially turn cloak to Rhaegar, explicitly or not.

Well, they talk to an outsider there, and would likely form a united front. Not to mention that it is quite clear they see their king's death at the hands of one of their own as a terrible stain on their honor - a stain they intend to wash away by killing Ned and his buddies. In light of what we learn about the KG in FaB we can seem them as living up to the standard set by Gyles Belgrave, who may have seen the murder of his king as a stain on his honor even if he wasn't involved nor couldn't prevent said murder to the point that he chose death. In his case, Cregan executed the man, in the case of the KG at the tower Ned and his men killed them in combat. The result is the same. They failed both Rhaegar and Aerys II and died to regain their honor.

That is the best take on that so far, especially if you think about chivalric ideals and all that.

But you also have to keep in mind that this is a dream conversation. We don't have to believe it reflects conversation and events accurately. George himself has gone on record saying that we shouldn't believe this fever dream is giving us an accurate depiction of events.

It is entirely possible that Ned recreated a conversation with the three KG which depicts his own view of their loyalty towards the Targaryens and he may have been unaware of the internal struggle between Rhaegar and his father at court.

I mean, you have to keep in mind that Ned has that dream when he first sleeps after quarreling with Robert over Daenerys. It sort of makes sense he would dream about Jon and Lyanna when he just did everything in his power to protect Jon's aunt and uncle from Robert the way he once did everything in his power to protect Lyanna's son from Robert.

2 hours ago, ATaleofSalt&Onions said:

As far as crushing Robert early, maybe, but the Crownlands are pretty weak and the loyalists in the Riverlands may have hesitated to leave their lands undefended after Aerys had just killed the fiance of Hoster Tully's daughter (and for that matter, that could be a reason to not leave the capital undefended). Not saying you're wrong, but I think there's a few possible explanations there (including convenience for the author).

Oh, the Crownlands aren't that weak. You can actually raise thousands of men just from KL alone, and Aerys II would have not just the mainland Crownlands but also the lords sworn to Dragonstone to draw men from.

Tully only joined the rebels months later and only because he got two favorable marriage deals. And Jon Arryn would need time to get his troops across the mountains. Storm's End is at the king's doorstep. They could have taken a considerable army there before Robert was ready.

And the whole idea that Merryweather had first the Stormlords and then the Tyrells raise armies to stop Robert implies that the Iron Throne was focusing on other things - meaning, in my opinion, finding Rhaegar and ending the rebellion that way.

[SeanF]

Its very hard to see any justification for his behaviour at the Tourney of Harrenhall.   Whatever his feelings for Elia and Lyanna, it was disgraceful for him to publicly disrespect Elia by crowning Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty.

[Hodor the Articulate]

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Going with the nonsense that 'Rhaegar was always dutiful' is completely ignoring context and structure of ASoIaF as such. George likes to construct certain appearances of characters only to deconstruct them and turn them on their heads.

We got Tywin the icy and unsmiling glacier and now know that this was nonsense. And there are other such examples - first the Lannisters murdered Jon Arryn and then this turned out to be a lie, Sandor Clegane was a complete thug when first introduced but gradually we learn that there is another side to him, as is to Jaime Lannister, the Tysha story we first heard, etc.

Agreed, but I think the "twist" with Rhaegar is that he is not the kidnapper and rapist he was first introduced to us as. 

Anyway, my annoyance is more with people either assuming a character must always act a certain way, regardless of context, or throwing out initial characterisations altogether when the character behaves contrarily one time. Rhaegar can have moments of impulsiveness with Lyanna but still be described as dutiful because that's how he is in other areas of his life.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Rhaegar was also obsessed with prophecy

This is one common interpretation I strongly disagree with. Rhaegar is not the only character who actively engages with prophecies yet is somehow the only one (other than Cersei) described as obsessed with prophecy.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I cannot but wonder whether Lya was in that tower to prevent her from betraying Rhaegar and House Targaryen. Because I don't see a woman with Arya's character ever getting so love sick that she would allow her lover/husband to save Mad Aerys from his deserved fate or stand idly by while her lover/husband fights and possibly kills her (former) betrothed and brother.

Betray how? Betrayal of trust/love, I get, but I don't see how she could have influenced the war in or out of the tower.

Also, when did they find out what was going on in KL? I assume they must have had some contact with the outside world, seeing as they didn't starve to death, but would servants and smallfolk have known much beyond the Lord of Storms End starting a war for his dishonored betrothed? Now I'm wondering if GRRM even thought about the logistics that much. 

[Only 89 selfies today]

He was either selfish or clueless.  Maybe both.  It was dumb to fight Robert in a duel.  Too much was at stake to let honor and masculinity get in the way. 

[Rose of Red Lake]

A lovesick fool who brought down his own House. If Dany is compared to him...rofl.

[Lord Varys]

7 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Agreed, but I think the "twist" with Rhaegar is that he is not the kidnapper and rapist he was first introduced to us as. 

That would mean we learned all we have to know about Rhaegar back in AGoT where this was first hinted at. That is clearly not the case, since the last new information on Rhaegar came with ADwD and TWoIaF.

7 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Anyway, my annoyance is more with people either assuming a character must always act a certain way, regardless of context, or throwing out initial characterisations altogether when the character behaves contrarily one time. Rhaegar can have moments of impulsiveness with Lyanna but still be described as dutiful because that's how he is in other areas of his life.

Sure, just as Tywin is still not smiling when Tyrion is around, and rarely, if at all, laughed since Joanna died. But we still learn that there is more to a character than the narrow view of a single or a couple of POVs gave us of the character.

I'd say Rhaegar was trying to please his parents and the court and the Realm for most of his life ... but in the Lyanna case he was not really thinking about all that. He would be a guy who always did what was expected of him until he no longer could or wanted to do that. Once in his life he wanted to do what he wanted, possibly even run away from everything.

His sense of duty also seem to have been what prevented him to stage a coup against his father - which he could have done even prior to Harrenhal simply by marrying Cersei and teaming up with Tywin. He certainly would have helped him get rid of the old man if he had married his daughter.

7 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

This is one common interpretation I strongly disagree with. Rhaegar is not the only character who actively engages with prophecies yet is somehow the only one (other than Cersei) described as obsessed with prophecy.

Rhaegar is not just obsessed with prophecy, he is also a victim of prophecy nuts, just as his parents were. His grandfather forced his parents to marry each other against their will, and after Summerhall they decided that Rhaegar was the promised savior they were allegedly destined to create, causing Aerys and Rhaella to pass on this 'knowledge' to their son who then was led to believe he had to become a warrior at a very early age when this wasn't exactly his wish. This is all reminiscent of a cult, as is Rhaegar's later belief his son Aegon is going to be this 'special savior guy' person.

My criteria for 'prophecy obsession' is that you don't just care about prophecies that foretell your own fate (as Cersei does and has good reason to do) but who think they are special saviors without good reason and/or think they have to ensure that a prophecy comes true (like Mel who forces prophecy to come true with Stannis, and Rhaegar, who seems to think he has to produce a third dragon head when nobody told he had to/should do that).

7 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Betray how? Betrayal of trust/love, I get, but I don't see how she could have influenced the war in or out of the tower.

By handing her unborn child to Ned to save it from Rhaegar's prophecy madness? And by doing her best to help them crush the Targaryens by informing them about Rhaegar's plans. The idea would be that she wanted to leave Rhaegar.

7 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Also, when did they find out what was going on in KL? I assume they must have had some contact with the outside world, seeing as they didn't starve to death, but would servants and smallfolk have known much beyond the Lord of Storms End starting a war for his dishonored betrothed? Now I'm wondering if GRRM even thought about the logistics that much. 

We have no idea when they reached that tower nor how long they were there. Regardless how they got there they would have heard about Rickard and Brandon, presumably, before they even got all that far from Harrenhal. I don't think they were at that particular tower for most of the war. They would have been at some other place(s) before he got there. I mean, as per Ned's fever dream they would also have heard about the Trident and the Sack by the time Ned got there, meaning it is pretty much impossible that Lya didn't know what the hell happened to her father and brother. Or that Ned and Robert were fighting against Aerys II for their very lives and Rhaegar in the end decided to help his mad father to kill them rather than to stand with them against the mad tyrant.

[ATaleofSalt&Onions]

17 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Considering the time line would indicate that Elia was already pregnant with Aegon during Harrenhal, meaning he already saw the comet which convinced him this unborn child would be the promised prince whose song is the song of ice and fire chances are pretty low he ever thought in such categories or saw Jacaerys-Sara or Jacaerys' nonexistent daughter and Rickon Stark as a parallel of himself and Lyanna. Assuming he knew about that obscure little detail of the Dance of the Dragons.

Again, acknowledged the timing of Aegon's birth and Harrenhal elsewhere. I'm not even saying this is definitely true or even probable. I just think it's possible and wouldn't be surprising to me.

17 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Since it seems Lya may have remained at Harrenhal as guest of the Whents chances are that Rhaegar should have been able to get to Lya easily enough - he could just go through Oswell and Lord Walter himself as he did with the tourney. And if she had been willing to go to him they should have been arranged that, too. I mean, even if Brandon left a contingent of Stark guards with her - the Whents could have just detained them in the castle, allowing Lya to go outside to meet Rhaegar or escorting her directly to him.

This is another part of the story where I'm really interested to know the details. I've seen the theory that Lyanna stayed at Harrenhal as a guest of the Whents and it does explain why she'd be there, but we don't have confirmation of that. Without knowing more concrete details, I can't really draw firm conclusions over what exactly must have gone down or how. And again, let's remember that this is ultimately a story, so if GRRM has to make something work in order to tell the story he wants to tell, even if it's not the most objectively probable option, then he'll do it. So I can't rule out the possibility of Lyanna going willingly and it being described as a kidnapping to Brandon (and others) despite the reasonable objections you bring up.

As far as the Kingsguard go - maybe, I can't firmly disagree with anything you say, but I remain pretty agnostic. I think there's definitely something more to the story explaining their actions, but I'm really not sure what exactly that will be.

IIRC the Crownlands can raise like 10-15k men, which is a fraction of what the Stormlands can raise. I know that the Tullys didn't immediately declare for the rebels, but they also didn't declare for Aerys and given their ties to the Starks I'd be surprised if the loyalist Riverlords or people in King's Landing weren't concerned about the possibility of Hoster Tully joining them. He also had to raise and gather his forces in time to fight at the Battle of the Bells, something that doesn't happen overnight. Not saying you're wrong and there may have been divided attention, I'm just not sure if it was really that easy to crush it. Also, I'm not convinced the rebel cause is doomed with Robert dead, at least as long as Stannis holds Storm's End. After the Battle of Ashford the Stormlands were a pretty small portion of the rebel army and they ended up winning regardless. But that's a little besides the point. Again, not saying you're wrong here, just that I'm not fully convinced of any particular theories about the relationship between Aerys and Rhaegar at this point in time.

17 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh they could be half a year or more apart if you think about the whole 'bastards grow faster than trueborn children' thing. That's not seen just psychologically but also physically as, I think, 12-year-old Joffrey being taller than 14-year-old Jon and Robb is supposed to indicate.

People knowing Jon Snow for a bastard wouldn't wonder that he was a larger baby than Robb Stark who was supposed to roughly the same age.

Chances are not that good that Jon and Robb were conceived at the same time since chances are very bad that nine+ months passed between the Battle of the Bells and Ned's visit to tower of joy. That would mean 7-8 months lie between the Battle of the Bells and the Trident, meaning the Rebellion is a war lasting a year where nothing happened for 7-8 months. That doesn't really work all that well. Even more so as Cat clearly remembers Ned rode to war immediately after they had conceived Robb - where the hell did he ride if he rode to Stoney Sept before his marriage? What he did he do for over half a year? Sit in some camp?

 I personally don't find the "bastards grow up faster" thing convincing, at least regarding infants where an age difference that big is extremely obvious and I don't buy that sort of saying as a sufficient explanation. The Joffrey thing may be meant to be ironic, but everyone believes him to be trueborn (initally) and I don't think George is trying to say that your growth rate is actually dependent on whether or not your parents were married. But that's not really the thing here I care to discuss further.

The part about the timeline is interesting to me. Here's the thing - at the end of the day with all this analysis about dates and time gaps, I think you have to keep in mind that George just really isn't great at the specifics of timelines. I believe I've seen you acknowledge that elsewhere, I recall reading a thread recently about the timing of Dany's conception, Rhaegar's departure for the Battle of the Trident, Rhaella leaving for Dragonstone, etc. and how there were some puzzling aspects when you looked closely. I think you can find the same thing here, for a few reasons I'll go over. First off, it wasn't that uncommon in medieval warfare for there to be significant gaps in time between major battles. And we know that after the Battle of the Bells, Hightower was sent to retrieve Rhaegar, who came back and then raised and trained an army for the Battle of the Trident. That all takes time. It's also possible there may have been some minor skirmishes during that time that we haven't been told about.

Setting that stuff aside, there's a key piece of the text plus a SSM that make me question the notion that there's supposed to be a big gap between the births of Jon and Robb, whether or not you can find flaws in a 9 month timeline after the Battle of the Bells if that's the case.

This is from Catelyn X in AGOT

Ned had lingered scarcely a fortnight with his new bride before he too had ridden off to war with promises on his lips. At least he had left her with more than words; he had given her a son. Nine moons had waxed and waned, and Robb had been born in Riverrun while his father still warred in the south. She had brought him forth in blood and pain, not knowing whether Ned would ever see him. 

This indicates that when Robb was born, Ned was still at war and Catelyn was uncertain of his survival. I struggle to interpret that as a time period long after the Battle of the Trident and the Sack. Certainly not long after the ToJ, which is by all indications the last fight Ned had during the Rebellion.

The other thing is Martin's comment about the age gap between Jon and Daenerys, which he's described as "closer to around 8 or 9 months" after someone asked if it was more than a year. That doesn't leave much room for a long passage of time between the Sack and the combat at the ToJ. Honestly, I probably think 6-7 months is more reasonable as an age gap, given the distances involved in Ned's journey to the ToJ, but that just goes to illustrate my point about George's trouble with timelines and to me his comments reinforce my perception that he's not imagining a big gap between all these events at the end of the war (between the Trident and the ToJ). And if Catelyn was still afraid Ned would die while away at war when Robb was born, the logical conclusion for me is that he was born around that time, if not earlier.

 

[Bowen Marsh]

Rhaegar is one of the few Targaryens who I do not like.  Better if he had stuck to his lute.  Then again, if he had, we would not have gotten the great dragons back.  So maybe Rhaegar was alright. 

[Hodor the Articulate]

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That would mean we learned all we have to know about Rhaegar back in AGoT where this was first hinted at. That is clearly not the case, since the last new information on Rhaegar came with ADwD and TWoIaF.

Finding out more about a character does not necessarily mean anything is subverted. What in ADWD and TWoIaF changes what we think of Rhaegar?

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Sure, just as Tywin is still not smiling when Tyrion is around, and rarely, if at all, laughed since Joanna died. But we still learn that there is more to a character than the narrow view of a single or a couple of POVs gave us of the character.

I'd say Rhaegar was trying to please his parents and the court and the Realm for most of his life ... but in the Lyanna case he was not really thinking about all that. He would be a guy who always did what was expected of him until he no longer could or wanted to do that. Once in his life he wanted to do what he wanted, possibly even run away from everything.

His sense of duty also seem to have been what prevented him to stage a coup against his father - which he could have done even prior to Harrenhal simply by marrying Cersei and teaming up with Tywin. He certainly would have helped him get rid of the old man if he had married his daughter.

No disagreement here. I just don't think the same writing technique is being employed for these examples. Finding out Tywin smiled  and that he used prostitutes was surprising. Those details subverted our expectations of him. Finding out Rhaegar was "able [...] determined, deliberate, dutiful, single-minded" added to the character but none of those traits were complete 180s. His being a nerd as well as a warrior maybe counts, but even that isn't too unexpected as he had never been characterised as a Robert-type.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Rhaegar is not just obsessed with prophecy, he is also a victim of prophecy nuts, just as his parents were. His grandfather forced his parents to marry each other against their will, and after Summerhall they decided that Rhaegar was the promised savior they were allegedly destined to create, causing Aerys and Rhaella to pass on this 'knowledge' to their son who then was led to believe he had to become a warrior at a very early age when this wasn't exactly his wish. This is all reminiscent of a cult, as is Rhaegar's later belief his son Aegon is going to be this 'special savior guy' person.

My criteria for 'prophecy obsession' is that you don't just care about prophecies that foretell your own fate (as Cersei does and has good reason to do) but who think they are special saviors without good reason and/or think they have to ensure that a prophecy comes true (like Mel who forces prophecy to come true with Stannis, and Rhaegar, who seems to think he has to produce a third dragon head when nobody told he had to/should do that).

'Obsession' implies abnormal and irrational behavior, and I don't see simply engaging in prophecies as crazy in a world where prophecies and magic messiahs are real. With Rhaegar, there's a lot of circular reasoning. He must be obsessed with prophecy because he impregnated someone just to fulfill a prophecy, and he impregnated someone just to fulfill prophecy because he's prophecy obsessed.

As for your definition, I think being told you are the subject of a prophecy by people who have studied it extensively and have expertise in the area (Mel and Aemon) is a good reason to believe it. There was nothing that clearly marked them as not being the PtwP, after all. Even so, Stannis has some suppressed doubts, and Rhaegar was obviously entirely attached to it or he wouldn't have been so quick to pass off to his son.

There is no good evidence Rhaegar thought the three heads were his children. Aemon certainly never suggests it, it's unnecessary to story and theme, and circular reasoning is required to make it make sense. That segment of the HotU scene was a vision and that is the hill I will die on!

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

By handing her unborn child to Ned to save it from Rhaegar's prophecy madness? And by doing her best to help them crush the Targaryens by informing them about Rhaegar's plans. The idea would be that she wanted to leave Rhaegar.

What plans? This is building speculation upon more speculation.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We have no idea when they reached that tower nor how long they were there. Regardless how they got there they would have heard about Rickard and Brandon, presumably, before they even got all that far from Harrenhal. I don't think they were at that particular tower for most of the war. They would have been at some other place(s) before he got there. I mean, as per Ned's fever dream they would also have heard about the Trident and the Sack by the time Ned got there, meaning it is pretty much impossible that Lya didn't know what the hell happened to her father and brother. Or that Ned and Robert were fighting against Aerys II for their very lives and Rhaegar in the end decided to help his mad father to kill them rather than to stand with them against the mad tyrant.

Not impossible at all. If no one knew where they were, the news they were receiving would have been through the area's smallfolk or their servants (if they had any). It would have been obvious to everyone a war had broken out, but Rickard and Brandon getting murdered in the Red Keep isn't necessarily a detail all the smallfolk outside KL would have known. It would take some time for rumors to spread, and even those would be tainted with whatever official story Aerys was putting out.

[Lucia Targaryen]

If there's one thing that ASOIAF isn't it's simple and Rhaegar certainly wasn't that.

Let's start with his birth. He was born during the Tragedy of Summerhall where his great-grandfather and many others died. Obviously he wouldn't have remembered it but being told about it would certainly have affected him. 

He was very intelligent but melancholic and didn't have many close friends, with the exception of Arthur Dayne and I would say Oswell Whent. 

Then there was his marriage to Elia. Lots of people just paint Rhaegar as a horrible husband but GRRM has said that their marriage was complicated. First it was an arranged marriage. We aren't reliably told Elia's feelings towards Rhaegar, whether she did love him or was fond of him. Given the vision we saw of them after the birth of Aegon (after Harrenhal) they seem to be on decent terms. Also we learn that Elia was well aware of Rhaegar's beliefs about TPTWP. Whether or not she believed the same is unknown but it at least shows that Rhaegar was being honest with Elia.

Then comes Lyanna Stark. I am of the belief that Lyanna was TKOTLT and the reason that Rhaegar gave her the laurel was to honor her valor in the tournament. We're not told Elia's reaction, maybe because she didn't have one. Maybe Rhaegar told Elia about his finding of the mystery knight. Given that Dorne is a bit more open to female fighters (her nieces, the Sand Snakes, are all taught to defend themselves) Elia might have been impressed by Lyanna's courage and talent.

After the birth of Aegon, the maester said that any more pregnancies could kill Elia. What's often overlooked is that Rhaegar wasn't going to force Elia to have another child, unlike Aegon IV and Jaehaerys I. Why wouldn't he and Elia have talked about the options? The Dornish are more open about having lovers (even her uncle Lewyn, a member of the Kingsguard, had a paramour) so why would Elia be against Rhaegar having one as well? 

There's one more issue - prophecy. We know that Rhaegar was invested in TPTWP but I think there was more to it. We've seen both Daenerys and Jon having dreams and visions, as well as Daeron and Daemon Blackfyre in Dunk and Egg. I think Rhaegar did as well. We see some evidence when Daenerys was in THOTU where Rhaegar looks right at her when discussing the heads of the dragon.

There's also his songs. Here's a quote from Barristen, "When you heard him play his high harp with the silver strings and sing of twilights and tears and the death of kings, you could not but feel that he was singing of himself and those he loved." 

What if he was singing of himself and those he loved? What if he knew that he was to die and cause the deaths of everyone he loved? What if that was the cause of his, as Barristen put it, sense of doom? 

Meera says that Jojen would not fight against his dreams, even to save his own life. Maybe Rhaegar was the same.

[frenin]

31 minutes ago, CassieSol919 said:

The Dornish are more open about having lovers (even her uncle Lewyn, a member of the Kingsguard, had a paramour) so why would Elia be against Rhaegar having one as well? 

Because the Dornish are still tied to the realkpolitik of the world and the Martells more than any.

Among other things, besides of the dornish not being as open as people believe them to be.

 

 

 

[Julia H.]

I agree with those readers who say we don't know enough about Rhaegar's actions to judge his character on the basis of those. There is the argument that he started a war and didn't care. We simply didn't know that it happened like that because crucial details are missing. Did he start the war deliberately, did he just do as he liked not caring about the consequences, did he have the necessary foresight to realize what could happen, did he take measures to avoid a war, did he have a plan that should have prevented a major conflict if everything had gone as planned? What knowledge / information did he act on, what were the circumstances he had to deal with, what were the alternatives, and what was his true purpose? Was he really just a love-sick troubadour or was he entirely concerned with the future of mankind or was there something between those two extremes? I don't know how anyone can say he was clearly stupid or obviously irresponsible or that he was single-handedly responsible for a war when we know so little about his plans, about his actions, about the specific circumstances that prompted him to act this way or another, about his knowledge / perception of the situation, about the degree and nature of the involvement of other key characters in those events. Without those details it is rather unfair and premature to pass judgment on Rhaegar's actions and, through them, on his character - I am ready to give him the benefit of the doubt at least. 

Then we have the opinions of other characters about him to give us some indication on Rhaegar's character. As other readers have noted, Robert alone describes him as a monster but many other characters describe him as a decent enough person. 

Robert has a clear reason to hate him. In addition, he is the one who killed Rhaegar and who (in his best moments) may feel a degree of guilt about the death of his enemy's children. He describes Rhaegar as a rapist, but his feelings about him wouldn't very likely be changed if he had proof that Lyanna was all willing and happy to go with him. (Besides, we know that a bit of rape is not necessarily beyond Robert himself, and he may not realize how his own attitudes could influence his interpretation of others' actions.)  His lingering disappointment (Rhaegar had taken the ideal girl and Robert ended up with Cersei in a loveless marriage), his continuing thirst for revenge even after the man has been dead for years and the need to justify not only the killing of Rhaegar but also the killing of his children all factor into the picture he paints of Rhaegar. 

Rhaegar's other enemy, Ned, who was similarly hurt by the Targaryens, who also loved Lyanna, participated in the rebellion but has no guilt over the killing of Rhaegar's children, does not express a negative opinion of Rhaegar. It has been brought up above that Ned does not have negative thoughts about Aerys either. This, however, is simply not true. A quick search brought me these two quotes: 

Brandon had been twenty when he died, strangled by order of the Mad King Aerys Targaryen only a few short days before he was to wed Catelyn Tully of Riverrun. His father had been forced to watch him die. He was the true heir, the eldest, born to rule. (AGoT, Eddard I.)

Those are clearly negative thoughts - he thinks of Aerys as the mad king, and he recalls a very cruel action: having a young man strangled and forcing an old father to watch his son's (his heir's) horrible death.  

And later, this is what he says to Robert:

"Robert, I ask you, what did we rise against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of children?"(AGoT, Eddard VIII.)

This sentence alone disproves the suggestion that Ned does not think of Aerys in a bad light on page. Associating Aerys with the murder of children reflects as bad an opinion of him as Ned can possibly have. The longer quote is this:

"Whereas Daenerys is a fourteen-year-old girl." Ned knew he was pushing this well past the point of wisdom, yet he could not keep silent. "Robert, I ask you, what did we rise against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of children?" (AGoT, Eddard VIII.)

Ned is trying to convince Robert that sending assassins after Daenerys is wrong. Dany is about the same age here as Lyanna was when Robert lost her. Ned could easily say: What did we rise against the Targaryens for if not to put an end to atrocities against children and women? How convenient it would be to draw a parallel between Rhegar's cruelty towards Lyanna and Robert's intended cruelty towards another 14-year-old woman! Yet, Ned does not bring up Rhaegar, but he does bring up Aerys. Ned very clearly expresses a bad opinion about Aerys, but not about Rhaegar. 

Now, the characters who express favourable opinions of Rhaegar: 

Dany: She clearly idealizes Rhaegar, yet she never met him, so her knowledge is secondary, most likely coming from two sources: Viserys and probably Willem Darry (possibly also filtered through Viserys). Sure, they are all biased towards Targaryens family members. However, since examining a comparable opinion on Aerys by the same character has been introduced earlier as a possible test of how much that opinion is worth, why not continue with it here. Dany has no idea of how bad a king Aerys was, but nor is her head filled with legends of the merits of her father. She seems to think of him as a very unfortunate king who was badly mistreated and betrayed by his disloyal subjects. While this view shows clear (and perhaps understandable) bias, we can also note that whoever instilled these ideas in her made a clear distinction between Rhaegar and Aerys in terms of role model value.        

Jorah: It is clearly in his interest to say things that Dany would like to hear, but there could be lots of topics to choose from. His decision to praise Rhaegar in front of her seems like taking a convenient opportunity rather than inventing blatant lies. After all, he could easily tell her lies about the greatness of her father, and Dany would not know better, he could also tell her how much the Targaryens are still loved in Westeros, but he does neither of those. Therefore, it is likely that he is being largely sincere here, at least expressing a valid opinion of Rhaegar. 

Cersei: I don't think she every noticed anything more than Rhaegar's appearance and his status as a Crown Prince, so she is not a judge of Rhaegar's character. 

Jon Connington: Comparing his feelings to Cersei's regarding Rhaegar is very unjust. How many men are willing to bring up and give their utmost support to the child of a person they just wanted to have sex with years ago (but never did)? Jon Connington is devoted to Rhaegar , and it is a devotion lasting for long years and prompting him to still live his life for Rhaegar. Such loyalty and undying devotion cannot originate in mere sexual desire, which is long gone after its object has been dead for nearly two decades. It is based on true love (and no, not only in the romantic sense) and sincere, deep admiration for the person in question. It is notable that Rhaegar was able to inspire such lasting devotion.

Barristan: I think his opinion is definitely worth paying attention to. He generally seems to be a good judge of character, he is perceptive, he tends to contemplate moral issues, he even questions and analyzes his own choices and actions. He is not Rhaegar's family member, but still knew him quite well, and he probably has information on him the reader does not have. He has a positive opinion of Rhaegar without romanticizing him. 

Another point that is worth mentioning (and perhaps hasn't yet been) is that Rhaegar's closest friend was apparently Arthur Dayne, who has earned the respect of such different people as Ned and Jaime. This could be another factor that indirectly tells us something about Rhaegar's character. 

[frenin]

1 hour ago, Julia H. said:

Brandon had been twenty when he died, strangled by order of the Mad King Aerys Targaryen only a few short days before he was to wed Catelyn Tully of Riverrun. His father had been forced to watch him die. He was the true heir, the eldest, born to rule. (AGoT, Eddard I.)

Those are clearly negative thoughts - he thinks of Aerys as the mad king, and he recalls a very cruel action: having a young man strangled and forcing an old father to watch his son's (his heir's) horrible death.  

This is not a negative thought, it's a statement of a fact. Aerys was called the Mad King by all the Seven Kingdoms long before the Robellion because he was indeed mad.

And Aerys did strangled his brother and forced his father to watch, that's not think ill of someone, it's  simply narrating an historical event.

 

You can compare that with those he truly dislike.

 

"Ser Jorah is now in Pentos, anxious to earn a royal pardon that would allow him to return from exile," Robert explained. "Lord Varys makes good use of him."
"So the slaver has become a spy," Ned said with distaste. He handed the letter back. "I would rather he become a corpse."

 

Ned would sooner entrust a child to a pit viper than to Lord Tywin,

 

1 hour ago, Julia H. said:

And later, this is what he says to Robert:

"Robert, I ask you, what did we rise against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of children?"(AGoT, Eddard VIII.)

This sentence alone disproves the suggestion that Ned does not think of Aerys in a bad light on page. Associating Aerys with the murder of children reflects as bad an opinion of him as Ned can possibly have. The longer quote is this:

No, again, it's a statement of a fact, a weird one since as far as we know Aerys didn't kill children among the rebels, but it states that Aerys actions towards children motivated them to rise, it however doesn not prove that Ned thinks of Aerys in a bad light. Since he doesn't. It would also not serve to draw a parallalel to Rhaegar, since Robert does not pretend kidnapp and rape her.

 

Regardless he does not think ill of Aerys.

 

Ned did not need Littlefinger to tell him that. He was thinking back to the day Arya had been found, to the look on the queen's face when she said, We have a wolf, so soft and quiet. He was thinking of the boy Mycah, of Jon Arryn's sudden death, of Bran's fall, of old mad Aerys Targaryen dying on the floor of his throne room while his life's blood dried on a gilded blade. "My lady," he said, turning to Catelyn, "there is nothing more you can do here. I want you to return to Winterfell at once. If there was one assassin, there could be others. Whoever ordered Bran's death will learn soon enough that the boy still lives."

 

"It will not come to that," Ned promised her, praying it was true. He took her in his arms again. "The Lannisters are merciless in the face of weakness, as Aerys Targaryen learned to his sorrow, but they would not dare attack the north without all the power of the realm behind them, and that they shall not have. I must play out this fool's masquerade as if nothing is amiss. Remember why I came here, my love. If I find proof that the Lannisters murdered Jon Arryn …"
 

I would not call those negative thoughts, it's like i put this quote.

 

 

This was the boy he had grown up with, he thought; this was the Robert Baratheon he'd known and loved. If he could prove that the Lannisters were behind the attack on Bran, prove that they had murdered Jon Arryn, this man would listen. Then Cersei would fall, and the Kingslayer with her, and if Lord Tywin dared to rouse the west, Robert would smash him as he had smashed Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident. He could see it all so clearly.

And say that Ned wanted Rhaegar to die as Tywin, why say Rhaegar and not Balon..., instead of Ned simply thinking that Tywin would have a similar fate if he rebelled...

 

1 hour ago, Julia H. said:

Jorah: It is clearly in his interest to say things that Dany would like to hear, but there could be lots of topics to choose from. His decision to praise Rhaegar in front of her seems like taking a convenient opportunity rather than inventing blatant lies. After all, he could easily tell her lies about the greatness of her father, and Dany would not know better, he could also tell her how much the Targaryens are still loved in Westeros, but he does neither of those. Therefore, it is likely that he is being largely sincere here, at least expressing a valid opinion of Rhaegar. 

Blatantly lying implies a lot of risks, mainly being discovered eventually, and Dany is far more interested in her brother than her father. 

[Julia H.]

51 minutes ago, frenin said:

This is not a negative thought, it's a statement of a fact. Aerys was called the Mad King by all the Seven Kingdoms long before the Robellion because he was indeed mad.

And Aerys did strangled his brother and forced his father to watch, that's not think ill of someone, it's  simply narrating an historical event.

There is emotion in Ned's thought there beyond just narrating a historical event. What Aerys did is very different from Ned's approach to execution: Aerys added unnecessary cruelty to it both by the method of the execution and by forcing a father to watch it. Ned does not need to think "oh, how immoral this was!" for the perceptive reader to know how he judges Aerys. (That is not the way how people recall traumatic or otherwise negative events in their thoughts.) There are more ways than one to give expression to your opinion. Here Ned makes Aerys responsible for a cruel action, that's clear enough.

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You can compare that with those he truly dislike.

"Ser Jorah is now in Pentos, anxious to earn a royal pardon that would allow him to return from exile," Robert explained. "Lord Varys makes good use of him."
"So the slaver has become a spy," Ned said with distaste. He handed the letter back. "I would rather he become a corpse."

Ned would sooner entrust a child to a pit viper than to Lord Tywin,

 

As I said, there are more ways than one to express dislike. Jorah and Tywin are alive, while Aerys is dead, so why would Ned have thoughts of what should happen to Aerys or what Ned would or wouldn't do in connection with him? 

51 minutes ago, frenin said:

No, again, it's a statement of a fact, a weird one since as far as we know Aerys didn't kill children among the rebels, but it states that Aerys actions towards children motivated them to rise, it however doesn not prove that Ned thinks of Aerys in a bad light. Since he doesn't. It would also not serve to draw a parallalel to Rhaegar, since Robert does not pretend kidnapp and rape her.

Well, we know what Ned thinks of people who kill children. Once we know that, on the one hand, killing children is one of the greatest crimes in Ned's eyes and, on the other hand, that he makes a connection between Aerys and killing children, it does not require much effort to see that Ned must have a very bad opinion of Aerys.    

The parallel would not be kidnapping and raping, of course, but causing the premature death of a young girl in a violent way.  

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Regardless he does not think ill of Aerys.

 

Ned did not need Littlefinger to tell him that. He was thinking back to the day Arya had been found, to the look on the queen's face when she said, We have a wolf, so soft and quiet. He was thinking of the boy Mycah, of Jon Arryn's sudden death, of Bran's fall, of old mad Aerys Targaryen dying on the floor of his throne room while his life's blood dried on a gilded blade. "My lady," he said, turning to Catelyn, "there is nothing more you can do here. I want you to return to Winterfell at once. If there was one assassin, there could be others. Whoever ordered Bran's death will learn soon enough that the boy still lives."

 

"It will not come to that," Ned promised her, praying it was true. He took her in his arms again. "The Lannisters are merciless in the face of weakness, as Aerys Targaryen learned to his sorrow, but they would not dare attack the north without all the power of the realm behind them, and that they shall not have. I must play out this fool's masquerade as if nothing is amiss. Remember why I came here, my love. If I find proof that the Lannisters murdered Jon Arryn …"
 

I would not call those negative thoughts, it's like i put this quote.

No, here he does not express his opinion of Aerys, he expresses his thoughts on the Lannisters and the immediate danger they represent. I didn't say that he expressed a bad opinion of Aerys every time he casually thought of Aerys, of course, not. Someone upthread said Ned not having negative thoughts on Rhaegar does not mean anything since he does not have negative thoughts on Aerys either. This is not true. Just the one sentence about associating Aerys with killing children tells volumes about Ned's opinion on Aerys.  

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This was the boy he had grown up with, he thought; this was the Robert Baratheon he'd known and loved. If he could prove that the Lannisters were behind the attack on Bran, prove that they had murdered Jon Arryn, this man would listen. Then Cersei would fall, and the Kingslayer with her, and if Lord Tywin dared to rouse the west, Robert would smash him as he had smashed Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident. He could see it all so clearly.

And say that Ned wanted Rhaegar to die as Tywin, why say Rhaegar and not Balon..., instead of Ned simply thinking that Tywin would have a similar fate if he rebelled...

Wanted Rhaegar to die as Tywin? Erm... Rhaegar died long before Tywin did.

Ned here wants Tywin to die. Balon didn't die. He wants Robert to kill Tywin, not to pardon him, hence the parallel with Rhaegar. 

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Blatantly lying implies a lot of risks, mainly being discovered eventually, and Dany is far more interested in her brother than her father. 

Sure, telling blatant lies would not be a good idea for Jorah. That's why I think that his praise of Rhaegar is based on facts, i.e., that's what he genuinely thinks or that's the opinion he has heard from other people. 

[Floki of the Ironborn]

On 5/28/2020 at 4:57 PM, Lord Varys said:

 Such an approach also helps us to explain why Ethan Glover, Brandon's squire, survived those trials - he may have been the one who broke under torture and confirmed all the king's suspicions, accusing Rickard and Brandon and the others of conspiring with Rhaegar against the king.

 

It doesn't explain why Ned Stark would keep Ethan Glover as a close companion, though. Or are we to believe that Ned brought those companions of his so that they'd be killed by the Kingsguard? Did the conspiracy also include a plan for those three men to kill four of Ned's friends but have Howland Reed perform a bit of dark magic to turn into the High Sparrow while sacrificing Arthur Dayne to do it?