Rhaegar: How do you feel about him?

[frenin]

@Julia H.

 

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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 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.  

It requires a lot of effort actually, unless you want to get trapped in an endless circular reasoning. Even if admitting that Ned viewed Aerys very badly because he killed children, it tells us little to how Ned feels with a defeated and killed Aerys, it tells us nothing about how Ned, who is very annoyed by the fact that Robert has not moved on yet, feels about him in Agot.

When Ned thinks ill of someone is clearly marked so there is no doubt. 

 

 

3 hours ago, Julia H. said:

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.

He wants him to be destroyed, both Balon and Rhaegar were.

He wanted Rhaegar to die as much as he wants Tywin to die.

 

 

3 hours ago, Julia H. said:

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. 

I don't know where you get that.

 

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“Your brother Rhaegar is still remembered, with great love.” “And my father?” Dany said. The old man hesitated before saying, “King Aerys is also remembered. He gave the realm many years of peace.

You don't need to blatantly lie to actually mislead someone, especially if someone has no grasp of the truth. Jorah also passes himself ably as a loyalist without him ever telling Dany he in fact was a loyalist.

And while Dany already had from Viserys the warrior without peer notion of Rhaegar, Jorah not only does not correct her, as Barri would later do, but encourages that idea. 

The only thing i believe from him is his claim that Rhaegar was the last dragon.

 

 

3 hours ago, Julia H. said:

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.  

Sure, "as Aerys learned to his sorrow" is a expresion of hatred. 

Ned's opinion and thoughts of Aerys are pretty neutral.

I did say that, he does not have any negative opinion of Aerys, and the children bit, rests upon an endless circular reasoning.

 

 

3 hours ago, Julia H. said:

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? 

Are there?? Ned is not subtle man when it comes to that, i agree that Aerys being dead and the others being alive and kicking is a reason for Ned's disdain to be stronger. 

Rhaegar is dead and Aerys is dead and Robert's hates them as much as the first day. When thinking about them, you would expect something better than neutrality.

 

 

3 hours ago, Julia H. said:

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

When one starts with the "perceptive reader"... Starts the special pleading.

Yes, Ned's making Aerys responsible of a cruel action... because Aerys is responsible of said action. What Ned is not doing is passing a judgment on Aerys. He is narrating the facts as they were. He is not saying, you nailed it, "how inmoral he was". 

That's exactly the way to recall negative events in their thoughts.

[Lord Varys]

17 minutes ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

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? 

That isn't supposed to explain any of that ... merely why Aerys II spared Ethan's life when he executed all his companions.

It is possible that Ethan was let go after Rickard and Brandon were executed because he had done what the king wanted of him, and thus eventually became one of Ned's companions, or he freed him from a cell once he arrived in KL after the Sack. I'd prefer the former idea since it strikes me as very odd that Ned would drag a young man with him who spent a year or so in a prison cell (although he could have been a tower cell rather than a black cell but we don't know).

[Julia H.]

3 hours ago, frenin said:

@Julia H.

Even if admitting that Ned viewed Aerys very badly because he killed children, it tells us little to how Ned feels with a defeated and killed Aerys, it tells us nothing about how Ned, who is very annoyed by the fact that Robert has not moved on yet, feels about him in Agot.

Sure, he can have different feelings about Aerys killing children and a defeated and killed Aerys. I don't see any problems with that. 

3 hours ago, frenin said:

He wants him to be destroyed, both Balon and Rhaegar were.

He wanted Rhaegar to die as much as he wants Tywin to die.

Perhaps he did once, but I don't think specifically the quote in question says this. Eddard's feelings are centred on Tywin. 

3 hours ago, frenin said:

I don't know where you get that.

I thought you and I agreed that Jorah wasn't telling Dany blatant lies about her family. So his praise of Rhaegar must have been told essentially in good faith. 

3 hours ago, frenin said:

The only thing i believe from him is his claim that Rhaegar was the last dragon.

Fine. 

3 hours ago, frenin said:

Sure, "as Aerys learned to his sorrow" is a expresion of hatred. 

No, it's not. I never claimed Ned used expressions of hatred regarding Aerys all the time. What I claim is that it is not true that he never has negative thoughts about Aerys. 

3 hours ago, frenin said:

Ned's opinion and thoughts of Aerys are pretty neutral.

Not totally neutral. He does not dwell on how terrible Aerys was, because Aerys is dead, and Ned has other things to think about. But when he links Aerys with child murder, his disdain for Aerys couldn't be clearer. By contrast, he never has a comparable statement about Rhaegar. 

3 hours ago, frenin said:

I did say that, he does not have any negative opinion of Aerys, and the children bit, rests upon an endless circular reasoning.

Except that there is nothing circular about it.  

3 hours ago, frenin said:

Yes, Ned's making Aerys responsible of a cruel action... because Aerys is responsible of said action. What Ned is not doing is passing a judgment on Aerys. He is narrating the facts as they were. He is not saying, you nailed it, "how inmoral he was". 

All right, so Ned recalls a sadistic action and we can be sure that he finds it totally normal and has totally neutral feelings about the person responsible for it.

3 hours ago, frenin said:

When Ned thinks ill of someone is clearly marked so there is no doubt. 

The description of a person's character does not necessarily happen through the use of adjectives, it can also happen through describing the person's actions. 

"Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?"

"For a start," said Ned, "I do not kill children." 

Ned doesn't reply with a bunch of adjectives to describe the moral difference between him and the Lannisters and Robert, he uses an action (killing children) to highlight that difference. The author does not add any specific markers to emphasize that Ned is now thinking ill of child murderers. Nor does Ned need to add an explanation that child killing is bad etc., his judgment is still rather clear here, even though he only points out something that they did.    

[frenin]

8 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

Sure, he can have different feelings about Aerys killing children and a defeated and killed Aerys. I don't see any problems with that. 

Then you can't say he has a bad opinion of Aerys for events that happened 15 years past.

 

10 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

Perhaps he did once, but I don't think specifically the quote in question says this. Eddard's feelings are centred on Tywin. 

Nor do i think that, i'm just pointing at the fallacy.

 

11 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

I thought you and I agreed that Jorah wasn't telling Dany blatant lies about her family. So his praise of Rhaegar must have been told essentially in good faith. 

No, non telling a blatant lie=/ complete and sincere truth. Especially when Jorah is misleading Dany.

 

 

13 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

No, it's not. I never claimed Ned used expressions of hatred regarding Aerys all the time. What I claim is that it is not true that he never has negative thoughts about Aerys. 

But he has not negative thoughts about him, his thoughts are always pretty neutral.

 

 

14 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

Not totally neutral. He does not dwell on how terrible Aerys was, because Aerys is dead, and Ned has other things to think about. But when he links Aerys with child murder, his disdain for Aerys couldn't be clearer. By contrast, he never has a comparable statement about Rhaegar. 

His disdain is nonexistent, in fact his "clear" disdain is a circular reasoning.  When Ned is disdainful, and he is pretty disdainful to Robert in that chapter, it's indeed made clear, when Ned is disdainful, you don't have to infer it, the adjectives are there to signal it. There is quite literally nothing disdainful in "Why we rose against Aerys if not to put an end to the murder of children".  Especially because is a desperate plea more than anything else.

Ned is not a subtle person, both when he let his emotions go or when he tries to hide them, those emotions are signaled one way or the other, never here.

Regardless, since none of Aerys many victims was child, Ned's words can't be literal, it's a figurative speech akin to "why would we rise up against a tyrant if not to make sure these injusticies didn't happen", children is put here because Dany.

 

 

28 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

The description of a person's character does not necessarily happen through the use of adjectives, it can also happen through describing the person's actions. 

"Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?"

"For a start," said Ned, "I do not kill children." 

Ned doesn't reply with a bunch of adjectives to describe the moral difference between him and the Lannisters and Robert, he uses an action (killing children) to highlight that difference. The author does not add any specific markers to emphasize that Ned is now thinking ill of child murderers. Nor does Ned need to add an explanation that child killing is bad etc., his judgment is still rather clear here, even though he only points out something that they did.    

No, it does not necessarily happen through the use of adjectives, but said description always have to be signaled, Ned is making clear that thinks ill of that by signaling it. 

 

 

33 minutes ago, Julia H. said:

The description of a person's character does not necessarily happen through the use of adjectives, it can also happen through describing the person's actions. 

"Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?"

"For a start," said Ned, "I do not kill children." 

Ned doesn't reply with a bunch of adjectives to describe the moral difference between him and the Lannisters and Robert, he uses an action (killing children) to highlight that difference. The author does not add any specific markers to emphasize that Ned is now thinking ill of child murderers. Nor does Ned need to add an explanation that child killing is bad etc., his judgment is still rather clear here, even though he only points out something that they did.    

A very weird strawman. 

But to answer it, i'm sure that there was a time when Ned's blood boiled just thinking in the duo, he has just moved on and thus he holds no resentment or ill feelings over them. Besides, he effectively destroyed them, there is little reason to be mad.

 

[Wall Flower]

14 minutes ago, frenin said:

 

Then you can't say he has a bad opinion of Aerys for events that happened 15 years past.

 

 

Nor do i think that, i'm just pointing at the fallacy.

 

 

No, non telling a blatant lie=/ complete and sincere truth. Especially when Jorah is misleading Dany.

 

 

 

But he has not negative thoughts about him, his thoughts are always pretty neutral.

 

 

 

His disdain is nonexistent, in fact his "clear" disdain is a circular reasoning.  When Ned is disdainful, and he is pretty disdainful to Robert in that chapter, it's indeed made clear, when Ned is disdainful, you don't have to infer it, the adjectives are there to signal it. There is quite literally nothing disdainful in "Why we rose against Aerys if not to put an end to the murder of children".  Especially because is a desperate plea more than anything else.

Ned is not a subtle person, both when he let his emotions go or when he tries to hide them, those emotions are signaled one way or the other, never here.

Regardless, since none of Aerys many victims was child, Ned's words can't be literal, it's a figurative speech akin to "why would we rise up against a tyrant if not to make sure these injusticies didn't happen", children is put here because Dany.

 

 

No, it does not necessarily happen through the use of adjectives, but said description always have to be signaled, Ned is making clear that thinks ill of that by signaling it. 

 

 

 

A very weird strawman. 

But to answer it, i'm sure that there was a time when Ned's blood boiled just thinking in the duo, he has just moved on and thus he holds no resentment or ill feelings over them. Besides, he effectively destroyed them, there is little reason to be mad.

 

There are a couple of other instances where his view of Aerys comes through;

'Ned could not let that happen again. The realm could not withstand a second mad king, another dance of blood and vengeance. He must find some way to save the children'.

'The realm....the realm knows what a wretched king I've been. Bad as Aerys, the gods spare me'

'No' Ned told his dying friend, 'not so bad as Aerys, Your Grace. Not near so bad as Aerys'.

On the plus side, Ned does think that Aerys was more fiscally responsible than Robert.

Ned is still clearly team rebel/team Robert but I do think there is something a little odd about the fact that when he, uncomfortably, puts his mind to thinking about Rhaegar as a person, the worst he can say is that unlike Robert he probably didn't frequent brothels.

As for my view of Rhaegar, I'm in the camp of reserving judgement. I feel like we have a jigsaw with pieces of the puzzle still missing with regard to Rhaegar's actions, motivations, his relationship with Lyanna and events at the start of the rebellion. I still have questions that just aren't satisfied by 'Rhaegar was an idiot', 'Rhaegar was crazy' or 'Rhaegar was the worst person ever'.

 The author has said we will get more information about the events leading to the rebellion (if we get more books) and I think there will be some surprises in the mix. That doesn't mean that Rhaegar will necessarily come up smelling of (blue) roses but hopefully there will be more complexity and perspective on his character and actions. as well as those of Elia and Lyanna.

[frenin]

11 hours ago, Wall Flower said:

Ned is still clearly team rebel/team Robert but I do think there is something a little odd about the fact that when he, uncomfortably, puts his mind to thinking about Rhaegar as a person, the worst he can say is that unlike Robert he probably didn't frequent brothels.

That's not the worst he can say as person about him, Ned's thoughts were related to brothels. If Ned had thought about Tywin, he would've come up to the same conclusion.

 

 

11 hours ago, Wall Flower said:

There are a couple of other instances where his view of Aerys comes through;

'Ned could not let that happen again. The realm could not withstand a second mad king, another dance of blood and vengeance. He must find some way to save the children'.

'The realm....the realm knows what a wretched king I've been. Bad as Aerys, the gods spare me'

'No' Ned told his dying friend, 'not so bad as Aerys, Your Grace. Not near so bad as Aerys'.

Hmmm, that the man was mad and he was a bad king?? 

Aerys was not a good King, whether you love or hate the man, that's being objective.

And about the mad King.

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His Grace’s growing madness had become unmistakable by that time. From Dorne to the Wall, men had begun to refer to Aerys II as the Mad King. In King’s Landing, he was called King Scab, for the many times he had cut himself upon the Iron Throne. Yet with Varys the Spider and his whisperers listening, it had become very dangerous to voice any of these sentiments aloud.

This was 4 o 5 years prior the Robellion, saying Mad King is stating a fact, the guy was nuts.

[Julia H.]

@frenin

To recapitulate:

I stated that the argument Ned "doesn't think of Aerys unfavorably either" is not true and provided two quotes where Ned's negative feelings / thoughts about Aerys come through. (Since then it has turned out that there are other quotes.) In the first one, Ned recalls Aerys's cruelty by recalling a cruel action (committed against Ned's nearest and dearest). 

You disagree that this counts as negative feelings / thoughts, and if I understand you correctly (which is by no means sure) your argument boils down to either that expressing judgment on a person's character cannot happen through describing their actions or that Ned never does so. If it is the first, it goes beyond the interpretation of this novel, and I disagree with it in general. If it is the second, then I must wonder on what basis we could say that Ned never expresses character judgment by referring simply to someone's actions when apparently we can see that he does (and I provided another example, unrelated to Aerys, from the book). You provided quotes where Ned wishes someone dead etc., and those quotes express Ned's hatred for the person, but the idea that Ned can only express his negative judgement on someone's character in ways he does in those (two?) examples is rather strange.  

In the second quote that I provided Ned makes a reference to Aerys as someone responsible for child murder. I claim that calling someone in effect a child murderer counts as expressing a negative opinion, especially when we exactly know how strongly the speaker is against the murdering of children. You call this argument circular but fail to demonstrate how it is circular (which makes me doubt that you know what circular means).

In any case, I stand by my opinion that the quotes in question express a negative opinion on Aerys. 

Just to make a few other things clear: What I do not claim is that every time Aerys's name is brought up in his thoughts Ned expresses a negative opinion on him. Of course not. Sometimes he thinks of him casually, his thoughts are focused on other things, Ned is not obsessed with Aerys. But that does not negate the negative opinion on Aerys that he expresses elsewhere. I also do not claim or think that Ned has a burning hatred for Aerys in AGoT. I find it rather probable that he had this burning hatred after he found out what had happened to his brother and father, at the time when Aerys was demanding his head, when his whole life was turned upside down. But Aerys paid for his actions with his life, then 15 years passed. I do think the original hatred has cooled off by the time we see Ned in AGoT. Having moved on, however, does not mean that he cannot have a negative opinion or negative feelings about Aerys - it does not have to be the kind of burning hatred that Robert still has for Rhaegar. We can see that he still associates Aerys with despicable actions and he refers to him sometimes when he needs a negative example. In other words, there are instances where Ned thinks of Aerys unfavourably on page (while he does not think of Rhaegar that way).       

I suppose you have already presented your best arguments regarding those two quotes, so I suggest let's agree to disagree. 

 

[frenin]

1 hour ago, Julia H. said:

In the second quote that I provided Ned makes a reference to Aerys as someone responsible for child murder. I claim that calling someone in effect a child murderer counts as expressing a negative opinion, especially when we exactly know how strongly the speaker is against the murdering of children. You call this argument circular but fail to demonstrate how it is circular (which makes me doubt that you know what circular means).

Aerys is a child murderer so Ned have a negative opinion of him him and because Aerys is a child murderer Ned has a bad opinion of him.

Parting from the premise that Aerys did not kill children, so Ned's words are figurative and no literal. The reason why i used the Rhaegar and Tywin example is simply by pointing out what you do, we link someone Ned dislikes, Tyywin, and something negative, being smashed, and say claim that it counts as a negative opinion of Rhaegar, especially when we exactly know how much he dislikes Aerys.

 

1 hour ago, Julia H. said:

I stated that the argument Ned "doesn't think of Aerys unfavorably either" is not true and provided two quotes where Ned's negative feelings / thoughts about Aerys come through. (Since then it has turned out that there are other quotes.) In the first one, Ned recalls Aerys's cruelty by recalling a cruel action (committed against Ned's nearest and dearest). 

You disagree that this counts as negative feelings / thoughts, and if I understand you correctly (which is by no means sure) your argument boils down to either that expressing judgment on a person's character cannot happen through describing their actions or that Ned never does so. If it is the first, it goes beyond the interpretation of this novel, and I disagree with it in general. If it is the second, then I must wonder on what basis we could say that Ned never expresses character judgment by referring simply to someone's actions when apparently we can see that he does (and I provided another example, unrelated to Aerys, from the book). You provided quotes where Ned wishes someone dead etc., and those quotes express Ned's hatred for the person, but the idea that Ned can only express his negative judgement on someone's character in ways he does in those (two?) examples is rather strange.  

No, my argument boils down that when Ned is expressing judgment on a person's character he signalesit, he singles out child murder with Cersei or to Robert. when not, comparing Tywin to a snake or expressions like disdain, scorn or distate are always there. 

Here you claim that Ned is passing a judgment on Aerys because Aerys cruelly murdered his family, ergo Ned must  express a negative opinion. There is nothing that points to any distate or opinion, the idea that Ned must have a negative opinion because no one would not have a negative opinion when recalling his kin's fatal fate so again Ned is expressing a negative opinion.

[Wisconsin]

Rhaegar was a man who allowed himself to be deceived by prophecy.  Might be he even deceived himself.  The duties that should have been his and Viserys are now on the shoulders of his little sister.  Rhaegar was another person who could not help themselves.  His feelings got in the way of duties.  I really do believe he kidnapped that girl. 

My opinion of him would obviously change if he kidnapped that girl for the purposes of preventing Robert's and Rickard's dastardly conspiracy from succeeding.  Their plot to remove House Targaryen from power was already a rebellion in the making and it is more evil than anything dreamed up by the Blackfyres.  I may actually start liking Rhaegar if he was working to undermine the Starks and the Baratheons.