Why was everyone so upset when Rheagar choose Leanna after he won the tournament at Harrenhall?

[fleabottom fool]

I never understood this. Why where the Starks and Robert Baratheon so insulted when Rheagar crowned Leanna Stark the “goddess of love an beauty”? Why wasn’t it seen as an honor? I mean he was a crown prince an he just made a public display stating that Leanna was the fairest in the land. And yet they are all deeply insulted so much so that eventually this leads to Robert’s Rebellion. 

My theory as to why they got mad about the gesture was that everyone assumed Rheagar chose Leanna not because she was beautiful but because she was “ugly”. In effect Rheagar was making fun of Leanna and the Starks (and Robert B) by choosing such a plain and homely looking tom boy as the most beautiful woman at the tournament. 

We are told throughout the books that Arya and Jon Snow favor each other the most and both look like typical Starks (the other Stark children favor their Tully mother). They both have long faces and Arya was called “horseface”. It is also mentioned that both Jon and Arya most strongly favor Leanna.

Obviously it took the subsequent “kidnapping” of Leanna by Rheagar to fully inflame the Starks and Robert to start the war, but I believe it was easier for most to marginalize Leanna because she didn’t fit the traditional image of a high born woman whose beauty/fecundity is her most important quality. For Rheagar to choose Leanna as beautiful had to be an insult because she was so obviously a disappointment to the Starks (and I guess Robert too) in this regard.

I see this as just another layer of nuance GRRM adds in creating character’s motivations. Think about it. Leanna may well have been flattered by Rheagar’s gesture but her family’s reaction to it just reinforced to her how her family and her betrothed really saw her. The public humiliation from her family reacting negatively to someone saying she is beautiful I’m sure had a lot to do with her running away to escape her life as it was. 

[Aebram]

"Horse face" is a phrase that people use when they want to insult someone who has a long, narrow face with a prominent chin.  So it's understandable that children would use it to tease each other.  However:

Quote

Her father sighed. “Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. ‘The wolf blood,’ my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it .... You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”

“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya.

“She was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.”  ("Game" Ch. 22)

Even in our modern culture, it's considered risky, if not downright rude, for a married man to show too much admiration for a woman other than his wife.  I'm no expert on medieval culture, so I don't know if the same taboo applied at that time, but it seems likely.  I imagine there are others here who can speak more of authoritatively about that.  And of course, regardless of cultural taboos, it's understandable that a man in love with Lyanna would be offended.

[Craving Peaches]

I think some people found it rude because he rode past his own wife to do it. I mean it's his wife so it would have been polite to crown her and not some other woman.

[cytherea]

Personally, I don't think they were upset at first with her being named, but as the user above mentioned, he did go past his own wife to name her. I think your theory of them perceiving it as offensive for her not being conventionally beautiful might be another factor as well, but yeah, after the kidnapping, everything went downhill for good, and the incidents were linked as indicators of the kidnapping afterwards

[Bobby B. VIII]

Essentially, Rhaegar insulted The Martell's (his wife Elia's house), Starks (Lyanna's house), and The Baratheons (Bobby B.'s house) all at ounce by asking for Lyannas favor since he was married to Elia and Lyanna was betrothed to Bobby B. (Robert Baratheon). Considering GRRMs Westeros is very much influenced by medieval history, particularly England, and the concepts of marriage, infidelity, and chastity portrayed in Westerosi(?) culture reflect this, I would say it is a safe bet to assume that Rhaegars actions offended a great deal of people that day.

[Alester Florent]

As noted above, it was an open insult/challenge to the Martells and Baratheons and an embarrassment at best for the Starks. But if he had left it there and not run off with her later, everyone would probably have got over it.

[Tyrosh Lannister]

He rode past his own wife , and lyanna was betrothed to Robert 

[John Suburbs]

On 9/16/2022 at 9:34 AM, fleabottom fool said:

I never understood this. Why where the Starks and Robert Baratheon so insulted when Rheagar crowned Leanna Stark the “goddess of love an beauty”? Why wasn’t it seen as an honor? I mean he was a crown prince an he just made a public display stating that Leanna was the fairest in the land. And yet they are all deeply insulted so much so that eventually this leads to Robert’s Rebellion. 

My theory as to why they got mad about the gesture was that everyone assumed Rheagar chose Leanna not because she was beautiful but because she was “ugly”. In effect Rheagar was making fun of Leanna and the Starks (and Robert by choosing such a plain and homely looking tom boy as the most beautiful woman at the tournament. 

We are told throughout the books that Arya and Jon Snow favor each other the most and both look like typical Starks (the other Stark children favor their Tully mother). They both have long faces and Arya was called “horseface”. It is also mentioned that both Jon and Arya most strongly favor Leanna.

Obviously it took the subsequent “kidnapping” of Leanna by Rheagar to fully inflame the Starks and Robert to start the war, but I believe it was easier for most to marginalize Leanna because she didn’t fit the traditional image of a high born woman whose beauty/fecundity is her most important quality. For Rheagar to choose Leanna as beautiful had to be an insult because she was so obviously a disappointment to the Starks (and I guess Robert too) in this regard.

I see this as just another layer of nuance GRRM adds in creating character’s motivations. Think about it. Leanna may well have been flattered by Rheagar’s gesture but her family’s reaction to it just reinforced to her how her family and her betrothed really saw her. The public humiliation from her family reacting negatively to someone saying she is beautiful I’m sure had a lot to do with her running away to escape her life as it was. 

My suspicion is that Rhaegar was declaring something that everybody already knew: that Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree. What he didn't realize, however, was that this put Lyanna in danger because Aerys had already declared this mystery knight to be no friend of his. So the smiles died not because they thought Rhaegar was crushing on Lyanna (plenty of QoLaBs were crowned for reasons other than romantic love, even little babies), but because they knew that this was going to produce blowback from the king -- which I think it did.