Character Study: Rhaegar Targaryen and Light Yagami

[Orm]

Ok those who watched Death-note know who Light Yagami is and can get where I am coming from. Most seem to think that Rhaegar was a good guy who made extremely bad life choices..... No I could never swallow that pill. Rhaegar always came off as sinister through his actions no matter how in-world characters think of him after he has been dead for 15 years. So here I present to you why Rhaegar is not a gallant prince but a psychopath very similar to Light Yagami:

 

1) The god complex: Barristan describes Rhaegar to have a sense of doom. In other words he is a person with god complex like Light Yagami. It is very evident that Rhaegar thinks of himself as some sort of ancient hero who is gonna save the world. Like how Light thinks he is gonna make a crime free world.

 

2) Arrogance and disregard of law: Ok so when Rhaegar learns that his mad dad has murdered the father and brother of the girl he seduced/stole,he then proceeds to join his father in quelling the rightly furious rebels implicating that he and his dad are above the law. Exactly how Light thinks that he is above the law.

 

3)His "love" for Lyanna and "respect/protection" for Elia: Rhaegar never loved Lyanna or Elia . Just used them as Light Yagami used Misa Amane and Kiyomi Takada. What happened to Lyanna and especially Elia is on him.

 

4) Have vehement ass-lickers: Jon Connington and Touta Matsuda.... Need I say more?

5)Fooled the people around them to think of them as a good guys

 

6) Got a shocking dose of reality and met their demise: In case of Rhaegar, Bob smashing him at the trident. And in Death-note Light got cornered and out-smarted by Neer

 

So this is my take on Rhaegar, a guy not dissimilar to Light Yagami. I would love to read your thoughts

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[Miss_Saffron]

On 7/9/2020 at 8:29 PM, Orm said:

Barristan describes Rhaegar to have a sense of doom.

I've always took it to mean that Rhaegar had bad feelings about the future of 7K. The fact that he believed himself to be the PtwP and later a future father to PtwP (therefore the man responsible for bringing the prophesied savior to life) are a better indicator of a savior-complex IMO.

On 7/9/2020 at 8:29 PM, Orm said:

His "love" for Lyanna and "respect/protection" for Elia: Rhaegar never loved Lyanna or Elia . Just used them as Light Yagami used Misa Amane and Kiyomi Takada. What happened to Lyanna and especially Elia is on him.

I do think the things don't add up here and there are circumstances around his relationships with both women that are yet to be uncovered. I'm not buying that he and Lyanna suddenly developed an epic romance and run away for ToJ blissfully unaware just what shitstorm they were brewing with such action. I mean, I could buy impulsive and naive Lyanna doing that, but not Rhaegar, who is described as many things, but not as a person inclined toward sudden bouts of monumental idiocy. There must've been some reason, why he believed disappearing with Lyanna was worth the risk of enraging at least two great lords. Passionate love just doesn't cut it as the motivator for Rhaegar.

As to Rhaegar's feelings for Elia, I think he did care for her, possibly even loved her. If he truly had a savior-complex and was convinced that he had to have a baby with Lyanna for some prophetic reasons, I think he could've love Elia and view the whole situation as his solemn and noble sacrifice of personal happiness for the purpose of saving the world from whatever doom he dreaded was coming.

And as much as I'm wary of the guy, what happened to Elia is on Tywin first and foremost.

As to the parallels to Light, they are interesting but I doubt they're intentional.

[Hodor the Articulate]

Do most people think Rhaegar is a good guy who made mistakes? In canon, yes. But if you're referring to the readers, my impression is everyone thinks he's a douche and/or loony toons... everyone on the internet, anyway.

I'm not familiar with Death Note but I don't think this Light Yagami fellow has much in common with Rhaegar...

1) Barristan uses "sense of doom" to mean burdened with grief. He thinks it's to do with Summerhall, but the Long Night and his role in it probably also weighed heavy on his mind. We know he didn't think himself the ptwp out of narcissism, because he's described as dutiful and passed the role off to his son instead of clinging to the idea that he's the hero. Unless you're meaning something else by 'god complex', it doesn't apply here.

2) Isn't this an example of following the law? Treason is illegal. And he had a duty to defend his family, which is not just his murdering old dad, but also his mother, siblings, wife, and kids.

3) GRRM himself called Rhaegar "love struck" and there's no reason to think his amicable relationship with Elia wasn't genuine.

I think to lay it all on Rhaegar is to strip Lyanna of her agency. And for Elia, absolving Tywin/Gregor doesn't sit right with me.

4 & 5) Rhaegar seemed to be surrounded by people who thought the sun shone out his arse, for sure, but there's no evidence he manipulated them into it.

6) Well, he thought he was coming back from the war alive, so... I guess? I don't think it was delusional to assume that though.

[Orm]

16 hours ago, Miss_Saffron said:

I've always took it to mean that Rhaegar had bad feelings about the future of 7K. The fact that he believed himself to be the PtwP and later a future father to PtwP (therefore the man responsible for bringing the prophesied savior to life) are a better indicator of a savior-complex IMO.

Saviour-complex, god-complex what's the difference? The fact is like Light, he thought he will protect or cleanse the world or something.......

 

16 hours ago, Miss_Saffron said:

Rhaegar's feelings for Elia, I think he did care for her, possibly even loved her. If he truly had a savior-complex and was convinced that he had to have a baby with Lyanna for some prophetic reasons, I think he could've love Elia and view the whole situation as his solemn and noble sacrifice of personal happiness for the purpose of saving the world from whatever doom he dreaded was coming.

Well George went on record saying that Rhaegar was a and I quote, "love-struck fool"......... If this is in fact how it will go down in the books then it makes Rhaegar even a bigger piece of shit.......

 

16 hours ago, Miss_Saffron said:

And as much as I'm wary of the guy, what happened to Elia is on Tywin first and foremost.

Ok, yea the crime done on Elia and her children is first and foremost on Tywin and Gregor; I am not absolving them of anything. But it still remains that it is because of Rhaegar that they were put in that position in the first place.

And don't forget Rhaegar knighted Gregor......So much for reading people

[Orm]

3 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I'm not familiar with Death Note but I don't think this Light Yagami fellow has much in common with Rhaegar...

Go watch Death-Note........NOW. what are you doing with your life?

[Orm]

3 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I think to lay it all on Rhaegar is to strip Lyanna of her agency

Maybe...... But if there is an affair between a 24 year old married man with two kids and a 15 year old impressionable kid....... Who would you put agency on?

 

3 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Isn't this an example of following the law?

The Targs(Aerys and Rhaegar)went above and beyond to make a point that they are above the law........ And that is why they ended up stabbed and hammered; Courtesy the Lion and the Stag

[Alyn Oakenfist]

Yes Rhaegar was definitely a narcissistic psychopathic mass murderer seeking to shape the world in his own image, with a God complex the size of Tom Cruise's ego and who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. So obviously the same character.

[Hodor the Articulate]

23 minutes ago, Orm said:

Go watch Death-Note........NOW. what are you doing with your life?

Investing too much time in a story we might never see the ending of?

10 minutes ago, Orm said:

Maybe...... But if there is an affair between a 24 year old married man with two kids and a 15 year old impressionable kid....... Who would you put agency on?

Lyanna wasn't some doe-eyed idiot girl. She was worldly enough to know what sort of man Robert was, and what kind of marriage she was to have. She should be allowed to be responsible for her own actions, and Rhaegar for his.

The age thing I blame on GRRM. He's inconsistent in how teens are supposed to be perceived in his world. Sometimes they're children, and other times they're ready to pop out babies and it's perfectly normal. Btw Lyanna was 16-17 yrs old, which is actually only slightly below than the average age of marriage for medieval European women.

45 minutes ago, Orm said:

The Targs(Aerys and Rhaegar)went above and beyond to make a point that they are above the law........ And that is why they ended up stabbed and hammered; Courtesy the Lion and the Stag

Well, technically, the king is above the law. And Rhaegar was following the law by not committing treason. What you seem to actually want to argue, though, is morality.

[Orm]

2 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Lyanna wasn't some doe-eyed idiot girl. She was worldly enough to know what sort of man Robert was, and what kind of marriage she was to have. She should be allowed to be responsible for her own actions, and Rhaegar for his.

Hmm...... Crying over a song and pouring drink over her brother's head in public doesn't come off as being mature....... And her problem with Bob is rich since her big brother Brandon is much the same(she is all chummy with him) and utterly hypocritical when she decided to run off with a married man with two children.

Honestly Lyanna Stark always came off as having the worst traits of Arya and Sansa combined..... But I don't condemn her because she is a dumb teen and dumb teens are allowed to make stupid mistakes

12 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Btw Lyanna was 16-17

Lyanna was seduced/kidnapped by Rhaegar when she was 15 and died in child-birth at 16.......

 

14 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Well, technically, the king is above the law. And Rhaegar was following the law by not committing treason. What you seem to actually want to argue, though, is morality.

Well maybe this is my way of saying that they deserved horrible deaths and got off way easy......

[Orm]

36 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Yes Rhaegar was definitely a narcissistic psychopathic mass murderer seeking to shape the world in his own image, with a God complex the size of Tom Cruise's ego and who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. So obviously the same character.

Never said the same character.......... But if you look at your outlines, tell me they don't add up?

[Miss_Saffron]

5 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

We know he didn't think himself the ptwp out of narcissism, because he's described as dutiful and passed the role off to his son instead of clinging to the idea that he's the hero.

There's every reason to believe that Rhaegar didn't relish the role of the savior and considered it a heavy responsibility and not a fuel for a power trip. So no, I wouldn't call him a narcissist. But IMHO a person needs a bit of an ego, to buy into the idea that he's the savior from a prophecy. Or even the one to be his father - so still a necessary piece of the world-saving puzzle. And embracing that kind of a burden can screw up even a well-meaning person. For now there's simply not enough material to know how all this stuff influenced Rhaegar, but I would bet it did and not in a good way.

5 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

GRRM himself called Rhaegar "love struck"

 

2 hours ago, Orm said:

Well George went on record saying that Rhaegar was a and I quote, "love-struck fool"

I wasn't aware of that, actually. It does change my outlook on his relationship  with Lyanna quite a bit.

Taking into account the fact, that the responsibility for fathering the savior of the world and - we can assume - raising him to be able to fulfill that destiny, weighted heavily on Rhaegar, Lyanna might just be a temptation he just coudln't refuse. From all accounts Lyanna was fiercely independent and dead-set on carving her own way in the world that had nothing to do with expectations family and society put on her (and every other woman in that world). Basically, she was everything a person buckling under a self-impossed pressure would see as embodiment of freedom - a water in the desert kind of a scenario. I see how meeting her could make Rhaegar want an escape from his duties badly enough to temporarily ignore all his responsibilities and all the ramifications of running away with her. 

It's not an excuse that would let him off the hook for starting the entire mess, when he really should know better, but it would be very human. Even the best people can snap under too much strain and do something immensely stupid for just a momentary escape/relief.

5 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I think to lay it all on Rhaegar is to strip Lyanna of her agency.

 

1 hour ago, Orm said:

Maybe...... But if there is an affair between a 24 year old married man with two kids and a 15 year old impressionable kid....... Who would you put agency on?

Lyanna's age and naivete can be considered mitigating circumstance, but there's all reason to believe she went willingly and just like Rhaegar, she shouldn't be left off the hook completely. And neither should she be seen as an alluring lamp Rhaegar picked up and carried away.

44 minutes ago, Orm said:

And her problem with Bob is rich since her big brother Brandon is much the same(she is all chummy with him) and utterly hypocritical when she decided to run off with a married man with two children.

Well. we don't know how much Lyanna knew about Brandon's indiscretions - older brothers often hide that stuff from their baby sisters, even if it's an open secret among their peers. We also don't know any details about the understanding between Lyanna and Rhaegar at the moment of their escape. It's possible that Rhaegar sold her 'the Dornish excuse'. It's possible that at first they only agreed that he would take her south, hide her and maybe arrange a passage for her to Essos or something like that. It's also possible that the sordid affair was there from the beginning and Lyanna was a firs-class hypocrite. 

[Orm]

27 minutes ago, Miss_Saffron said:

There's every reason to believe that Rhaegar didn't relish the role of the savior and considered it a heavy responsibility and not a fuel for a power trip. So no, I wouldn't call him a narcissist. But IMHO a person needs a bit of an ego, to buy into the idea that he's the savior from a prophecy. Or even the one to be his father - so still a necessary piece of the world-saving puzzle. And embracing that kind of a burden can screw up even a well-meaning person. For now there's simply not enough material to know how all this stuff influenced Rhaegar, but I would bet it did and not in a good way.

Oh for the love God(if there is one out there), this guy thought that he is the destined hero who is gonna save the world after reading a dusty scroll.......later he is the daddy of the saviour who is gonna father the said saviour on his cousin's wife to be and that said cousin's parents died finding a bride for him..........even Light is tame compared to this who gotta a note-book which can kill people by writing their name on it....

 

If this cannot be considered narcissistic or arrogant I don't know what will......

[Hodor the Articulate]

49 minutes ago, Orm said:

Hmm...... Crying over a song and pouring drink over her brother's head in public doesn't come off as being mature....... And her problem with Bob is rich since her big brother Brandon is much the same(she is all chummy with him) and utterly hypocritical when she decided to run off with a married man with two children.

Honestly Lyanna Stark always came off as having the worst traits of Arya and Sansa combined..... But I don't condemn her because she is a dumb teen and dumb teens are allowed to make stupid mistakes

A lot of adults are immature - should we assume those people have no agency because of that? Lyanna was hot-headed, but that that doesn't make her the ingenue you painted her as.

I'm not sure why having a manslut for a brother means she can't complain about having one for a husband. Nor why having a married man for a lover makes her a hypocrite. She's not the one doing the cheating, and there's a difference between Robert, who hoes around because he's a womanizer, and Rhaegar, who's only cheated on his wife with her.

1 hour ago, Orm said:

Lyanna was seduced/kidnapped by Rhaegar when she was 15 and died in child-birth at 16.......

Why use that age for Lyanna but age of death for Rhaegar? But it doesn't really matter. What I said about GRRM's age problem still stands.

1 hour ago, Orm said:

Well maybe this is my way of saying that they deserved horrible deaths and got off way easy......

Aerys, maybe. But what did Rhaegar do that deserves the torturous death you're fantasizing about? It could be argued that the rebels deserve the same fate because their actions lead to the murder of Elia, Aegon, and Rhaenys and the chaotic life Viserys and Daenerys had to endure.

[Orm]

6 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

lot of adults are immature - should we assume those people have no agency because of that? Lyanna was hot-headed, but that that doesn't make her the ingenue you painted her as

My object of discussion in this thread is not Lyanna......That being said your post only cements my belief that Rhaegar is to blame since Lyanna is not an adult(not even in westerosi standards) and Rhaegar took advantage of that either because he couldn't keep it in his pants or for his prophecy baby.

 

11 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I'm not sure why having a manslut for a brother means she can't complain about having one for a husband. Nor why having a married man for a lover makes her a hypocrite. She's not the one doing the cheating, and there's a difference between Robert, who hoes around because he's a womanizer, and Rhaegar, who's only cheated on his wife with her.

Yea if you are blatantly Nepotistic, then obviously you can complain about your husband but not your brother..... And if you don't see a problem with having an affair with a known married person then you and I have drastically different morals........ And if you think it's a guarantee that he/she only cheated with me and never will cheat on me.....than your as naive as Lyanna...

 

19 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Why use that age for Lyanna but age of death for Rhaegar? But it doesn't really matter. What I said about GRRM's age problem still stands

Ok Rhaegar started this shit when he was 23 and got smashed by his cousin who was 21 when he was 24..... And if you chalk up age related characteristics as writing flaw then I have nothing to say

 

25 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Aerys, maybe. But what did Rhaegar do that deserves the torturous death you're fantasizing about? It co

I don't know.....maybe starting the whole damn thing which killed thousands all because either a)he couldn't keep it in his pants or b)prophecy baby.

Its just that I think he should have suffered more than just a resized chest cavity......

30 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

could be argued that the rebels deserve the same fate because their actions lead to the murder of Elia, Aegon, and Rhaenys and the chaotic life Viserys and Daenerys had to endure.

The rebels were fighting on pain of death..... What would you do if you were either Bob,Ned or Jon?

[Miss_Saffron]

2 hours ago, Orm said:

Oh for the love God(if there is one out there), this guy thought that he is the destined hero who is gonna save the world after reading a dusty scroll.......later he is the daddy of the saviour who is gonna father the said saviour on his cousin's wife to be and that said cousin's parents died finding a bride for him..........even Light is tame compared to this who gotta a note-book which can kill people by writing their name on it....

 

If this cannot be considered narcissistic or arrogant I don't know what will......

I respectfully disagree.

The worst-case interpretation of Rhaegar that can be supported by the text and not something straight out of Bobby B's revenge fantasy is that Rhaegar jumped at the gun to name himself a PtwP and when the signs didn't quite align he decided it must be his son instead, because he just had to be somehow involved. Over-inflated sense of self-importance to the fate of the world? Yes. Arrogance? At least a shade of it, yes. But narcissism is a bit of a stretch. The only account of Rhaegar's attitude towards this whole world-saving business doesn't paint him as a man eagerly awaiting the chance to smite the hordes of evil and be hailed as the savior but a man worried his efforts might not be enough. 

If he was just one breath away from transforming into god-emperor of 7K as you seem to be believing, he'd hatch a plot to overthrow his mad daddy and take the power from himself, because there are good indications that such a move would've succeed and people would cheer him for that. Instead, Rhaegar waited patiently much longer than he'd had to, only coming to a decision to step up to the plate after his father's actions lit the fire under a rebellion (it's pretty clear that Robert might be fighting a war for Lyanna's virtue, but the pupular support didn't come from the outrage about her kidnapping but how Aery's treated Rickard and Brandon Stark). And by that time it was too little too late.

Yes, Rhaegar was an absolute dumbass for starting the whole thing and then letting the situation so completely out of hand and yes, a lot of people died for his love/lust-induced temporary lapse of judgement. He is responsible as hell for all of that. But there's no evidence he was malicious in the things he did and this should also count for something.

An aside about the bolded part - it's not clear which one of his sons Rhaegar considered the savior-to-be. Dany's vision indicates it was Aegon, which supports the theory that the Lyanna affair was pure escapism for him. On the other hand, 'there must be a third' spiel seems a smoking gun indicating, that producing the last piece to complete a set of magic heirs was always on Rhaegar's agenda. But this, once again, is a speculation not a Martin-given truth.

2 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

why having a married man for a lover makes her a hypocrite. She's not the one doing the cheating

She's not the one doing the cheating, so she's not responsible for the cheating part. Doesn't make her morally pure as a freshly fallen snow, though. She's still complicit in the act that puts Elia in the same place Lyanna herself wanted to escape badly enough to ditch her family and life for. It is hypocritical in the same sense as saying that stealing my cow is bad but enabling sb to steal sb else's cow is ok.

Assuming she went into all of it with open eyes, knowing it was a sordid affair. I still stand by the opinion, that there might be some mitigating circumstances.

[Orm]

5 minutes ago, Miss_Saffron said:

he was just one breath away from transforming into god-emperor of 7K as you seem to be believing, he'd hatch a plot to overthrow his mad daddy and take the power from himself, because there are good indications that such a move would've succeed and people would cheer him for that. Instead, Rhaegar waited patiently much longer than he'd had to, only coming to a decision to step up to the plate after his father's actions lit the fire under a rebellion (it's pretty clear that Robert might be fighting a war for Lyanna's virtue, but the pupular support didn't come from the outrage about her kidnapping but how Aery's treated Rickard and Brandon Stark). And by that time it was too little too late.

Yes, Rhaegar was an absolute dumbass for starting the whole thing and then letting the situation so completely out of hand and yes, a lot of people died for his love/lust-induced temporary lapse of judgement. He is responsible as hell for all of that. But there's no evidence he was malicious in the things he did and this should also count for something.

Firstly have you watched Death-note note the anime? If you did then you would know that Light immediately did not want to become god-emperor after getting the Death-note. It was a gradual process of him thinking of the idea. I think that something similar went down in Rhaegar's mind..... It was not too late for him and his family at least even after the mad cunt did what he did. He could've come out to the rebels and pardon them and join them in overthrowing the mad cunt. Sure Bob would've buried him the second he saw him. But there is still honourable and reasonable Jon Arryn and Ned Stark. They would have listened to him. But what does the gallant prince Rhaegar do? He proceeds to support his dad, implicating he and his dad are above the law/custom.....

I know George writes gray characters and I will admit that Rhaegar is a grey character...... But my issue is that people seem to think Rhaegar would have made a great king if he did not make the mistake of facing Bob in single combat/clash

[Orm]

22 minutes ago, Miss_Saffron said:

She's not the one doing the cheating, so she's not responsible for the cheating part. Doesn't make her morally pure as a freshly fallen snow, though. She's still complicit in the act that puts Elia in the same place Lyanna herself wanted to escape badly enough to ditch her family and life for. It is hypocritical in the same sense than saying that stealing my cow is bad but enabling sb to steal sb else's cow is ok.

Well said..... couldn't agree more

[Hodor the Articulate]

1 hour ago, Orm said:

My object of discussion in this thread is not Lyanna......That being said your post only cements my belief that Rhaegar is to blame since Lyanna is not an adult(not even in westerosi standards) and Rhaegar took advantage of that either because he couldn't keep it in his pants or for his prophecy baby.

You can judge them how you want, and I can not like robbing women of agency or infantilising them.

1 hour ago, Orm said:

Yea if you are blatantly Nepotistic, then obviously you can complain about your husband but not your brother..... And if you don't see a problem with having an affair with a known married person then you and I have drastically different morals........ And if you think it's a guarantee that he/she only cheated with me and never will cheat on me.....than your as naive as Lyanna...

That's not what nepotism means... and I still don't see why she's not allowed to complain about her betrothed just because her brother acts the same way.

I didn't say anything about not having a problem with people having relationships with the already attached, but if you must know, I couldn't care less about it. It's my personal view that it's the married person's responsibility to not stray. I didn't share my opinions on cheating men, either, so don't make it so personal.

1 hour ago, Orm said:

Ok Rhaegar started this shit when he was 23 and got smashed by his cousin who was 21 when he was 24..... And if you chalk up age related characteristics as writing flaw then I have nothing to say

It's perfectly normal for 20-something year old Tyrion to consummate his marriage to 12 year old Sansa, but Sansa is also a child. This is the world GRRM wrote.

1 hour ago, Orm said:

I don't know.....maybe starting the whole damn thing which killed thousands all because either a)he couldn't keep it in his pants or b)prophecy baby.

Its just that I think he should have suffered more than just a resized chest cavity......

But it was Aerys torturing and killing the Starks that set off the war. You think infidelity deserves worse than death? Harsh.

1 hour ago, Orm said:

The rebels were fighting on pain of death..... What would you do if you were either Bob,Ned or Jon?

Well, Rhaegar was fighting to prevent pain of death. Why is it okay for Ned, Bobby B, and Jon to avenge death but not for Rhaegar to try to prevent it?

[Miss_Saffron]

17 minutes ago, Orm said:

Light immediately did not want to become god-emperor after getting the Death-note. It was a gradual process of him thinking of the idea. I think that something similar went down in Rhaegar's mind.

I can agree with you here. I just don't think that anything in the text supports the judgement, that Rhaegar went off the deep end in his lifetime. Could he progress into full-blown narcissism/god-complex/etc. later in life? Possibly, but that's neither here nor there.

21 minutes ago, Orm said:

It was not too late for him and his family at least even after the mad cunt did what he did. He could've come out to the rebels and pardon them and join them in overthrowing the mad cunt. Sure Bob would've buried him the second he saw him. But there is still honourable and reasonable Jon Arryn and Ned Stark. They would have listened to him.

The scenario you're describing sure would be as close to perfect and just resolution as possible, but I see little chance of it happening that way.

If Rhaegar had been in KL during the execution of Rickard and Brandon or shortly thereafter and acted immediately to lock his father in the attic on account of his lunacy, assume regency and make reparations towards the Starks and Baratheons, he could've avoid the rebellion. Bobby would've seethe for the rest of his life and make it his mission in life to kill Rhaegar the next time they rode agains each other in a tourney, but the nobles as a whole would let the matter rest. Jon Arryn would be reasonable and Ned as well, because despite all his love for Lyanna, he clearly knew she had a part in all of it. 

But the moment the rebellion was hatched the rebels had no need for Rhaegar - if they won they would dictate terms and wouldn't have to worry about him and if they were to loose... having Rhaegar on their side wouldn't change much. It should be remembered, that Targaryen forces Rhaegar led were Targaryen loyalists not Rhaegar loyalists. It's hard to say how many of them would follow Rhaegar into the rebel's camp, but definitely not all of them. And that's what would decide the fate of rebellion.

So for Rhaegar siding with rebels would mean losing all power to influence the outcome of the situation (because by himself he had little power to negotiate) and in the eyes of many loyalists it would give a chance to spin his involvement with them as a move by a power-hungry upstart, who lost patience waiting to inherit the crown. Aerys would jump at the chance to remove Rhaegar from the line of succession and then he would have no value to the rebels whatsoever. 

50 minutes ago, Orm said:

But what does the gallant prince Rhaegar do? He proceeds to support his dad, implicating he and his dad are above the law/custom

As @Hodor the Articulate pointed out, that was already a norm, so it's a bad look for Rhaegar, but it doesn't make the situation any worse than it already is and making that the big smear on Rhaegar's character is a bit excessive IMHO.

Also, the conversation Rhaegar has with Jaime implicates pretty clearly, that he wanted to fix things in the kingdom after putting the end to the uprising. For all we know, he planned to pardon all the rebels - the leaders included - and agree to some compromise with them regarding the rule of the law in 7K. But he could do that only from a position of power, as an heir/regent, because otherwise they had no reason to negotiate with him.

59 minutes ago, Orm said:

my issue is that people seem to think Rhaegar would have made a great king if he did not make the mistake of facing Bob in single combat/clash

I'm not one of them. Rhaegar wouldn't make a great king - I'd argue none of the characters in the ASOIAF would, even the one George himself is grooming for that spot.

Rhaegar could reasonably make a better king that Robert (he wouldn't run the kingdom into a massive debt and would take much more active role in managing the kingdom) and Joff (because a tree stump with a crown stuck on the top would do a better job, didn't even have to be a weirwood tree). Out of all the potential kings in the book (save Dany/Jon) he would be the best one to sit on the throne during the war with Others, simply by the virtue of believing a mystical threat to 7K was imminent - so he would believe in the reports about Others and marshal the armies to fight them. But that's it. Being better than a collection of impressively bad choices doesn't make him great in any way in my mind.

And of course we don't know how the consequences of the Lyanna affair would've influence him. The entire mess could be a lesson to not fixate on prophecies and consider the ramifications of his actions but if the situation would turn up entirely to his liking (him as a regent, Elia and babies unharmed, his kid with Lyanna in his possession) it might very well convince him everything happened for a reason and was, all in all, a fair price to pay for the end goal of securing his dream-team of world-saving heirs. But that's not text, not even interpretation of the text but pure fan speculation. In other words - fanfic. And I can't judge and condemn a character on the basis of the worst possible fanfic scenario for him.

[Hodor the Articulate]

3 hours ago, Miss_Saffron said:

There's every reason to believe that Rhaegar didn't relish the role of the savior and considered it a heavy responsibility and not a fuel for a power trip. So no, I wouldn't call him a narcissist. But IMHO a person needs a bit of an ego, to buy into the idea that he's the savior from a prophecy. Or even the one to be his father - so still a necessary piece of the world-saving puzzle. And embracing that kind of a burden can screw up even a well-meaning person. For now there's simply not enough material to know how all this stuff influenced Rhaegar, but I would bet it did and not in a good way.

It would be egoistic for a rando to decided he was a prophesied hero, but Rhaegar checked a lot of boxes. He was born of the Aerys-Rhaella line, amidst salt (tears) and smoke (of Summerhall). It's not unreasonable to believe he was the ptwp. Maester Aemon thought he was, and it sounds like they discussed the prophecy at length. Rhaegar probably grew up being told he was the ptwp.

3 hours ago, Miss_Saffron said:

I wasn't aware of that, actually. It does change my outlook on his relationship  with Lyanna quite a bit.

Taking into account the fact, that the responsibility for fathering the savior of the world and - we can assume - raising him to be able to fulfill that destiny, weighted heavily on Rhaegar, Lyanna might just be a temptation he just coudln't refuse. From all accounts Lyanna was fiercely independent and dead-set on carving her own way in the world that had nothing to do with expectations family and society put on her (and every other woman in that world). Basically, she was everything a person buckling under a self-impossed pressure would see as embodiment of freedom - a water in the desert kind of a scenario. I see how meeting her could make Rhaegar want an escape from his duties badly enough to temporarily ignore all his responsibilities and all the ramifications of running away with her. 

It's not an excuse that would let him off the hook for starting the entire mess, when he really should know better, but it would be very human. Even the best people can snap under too much strain and do something immensely stupid for just a momentary escape/relief.

This is exactly what I think happened. I take the R+L story at face value. No prophecy fulfilling or pacts or political maneuvering. Just two people escaping duty for love, and the consequences of that decision in a world that expects duty. TWOIAF kinda supports this -  it implies Rhaegar and Lyanna just bumped into each other in the Riverlands when he "kidnapped" her. Everything in TWOIAF should be taken with a grain of salt though.

1 hour ago, Miss_Saffron said:

She's not the one doing the cheating, so she's not responsible for the cheating part. Doesn't make her morally pure as a freshly fallen snow, though. She's still complicit in the act that puts Elia in the same place Lyanna herself wanted to escape badly enough to ditch her family and life for. It is hypocritical in the same sense than saying that stealing my cow is bad but enabling sb to steal sb else's cow is ok.

Assuming she went into all of it with open eyes, knowing it was a sordid affair. I still stand by the opinion, that there might be some mitigating circumstances.

I still don't think that makes her a hypocrite. It's not the infidelity per se that she finds unappealing about Robert; it's his character in general she objects to.