The elephant in the room: Rhaegar was planning on doing human sacrifice to bring back the dragons

[Loose Bolt]

30 minutes ago, Tradecraft said:

Melisandre is a sorceress who wears rubies and performs blood magic. 

 

Why do you think Rhaegar wears rubies?

Actually rubies are red kyber crystals so both Mel and Rhaegal were Siths.

[SaffronLady]

36 minutes ago, Tradecraft said:

Melisandre is a sorceress who wears rubies and performs blood magic. 

Why do you think Rhaegar wears rubies?

Because Rhaegar's armor fits the Targ family colors of red and black, so he uses rubies to ornament his black metal armor.

[Tradecraft]

32 minutes ago, SaffronLady said:

Because Rhaegar's armor fits the Targ family colors of red and black, so he uses rubies to ornament his black metal armor.

I'm thinking it's a better reason than "they look cool". 

[LongRider]

2 hours ago, Tradecraft said:

Mel is a blood

Glad to have that cleared up.

[Craving Peaches]

2 hours ago, LongRider said:

Glad to have that cleared up.

Does this mean the Great Other is a crip?

Edited July 16, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Sandy Clegg]

9 hours ago, Tradecraft said:

But seriously, how come nobody makes the link between blood magic and Rhaegar?

One reason is because we as readers have been heavily steered towards the view that Rhaegar was a ‘good egg’, despite Robert’s labelling of him as a rapist abductor.

We note Ned’s musings that Rhaegar ‘wasn’t the sort to frequent brothels’ and put a tick in the Rhaegar=good box, even though this can be interpreted multiple ways. 

Jamie and Jorah also both have positive things to say about Rhaegar. A would-be child-killer and an ex-slaver. Still, they have their good qualities I guess?

It’s really only Robert who sees the bad in Rhaegar, and he is clouded by jealousy and bitterness. So as readers it’s an easy conclusion to draw. Rhaegar couldn’t be as Robert claims he is. It would be too obvious. Yet the clues to the contrary are equally obvious - they just get introduced piece by piece as the text unfolds.

The truth is probably greyer than we’d like. George likes to play with tropes, just as he does with Sandor and Sansa, where readers  can get invested in the ‘narrative’ (as in spin) that Sandor actually did have a heart of gold - like with Beauty and the Beast. But reality rarely offers up such paragons. Disfigurement doesn’t necessarily make one nicer (if anything it made Tyrion worse). The Hound hurts Sansa and possibly more. George himself referred to him (as well as Jamie and Theon) as a ‘ villain’. But there is a tendency to romanticism that makes us want to believe in the comeback story. The hidden diamond in the rough. The bastard with a heart of gold. I don’t think this is necessarily that kind of story, though.

As to Rhaegar and sacrifice, I’d say it’s certainly on the table as an option. Surely the bringing forth of babies was the main goal in any case. But Lyanna’s story has around a year unaccounted for in which a hell of a lot may have happened. Rhaegar may have begun the process with one plan in mind, but then undergone a change of character - such as we see in Jamie. Or the reverse. Hopefully we somehow get an account of Lyanna and Rhaegar’s time together and see the story that took place between them, because it’s bound to be a good one.

[SaffronLady]

23 minutes ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Rhaegar ‘wasn’t the sort to frequent brothels’

I'd imagine Westeros isn't some good place to go looking for homosexual brothels.

23 minutes ago, Sandy Clegg said:

even though this can be interpreted multiple ways. 

So yup.

[Nevets]

5 hours ago, Tradecraft said:

I'm thinking it's a better reason than "they look cool". 

I hate to break this to you, but everybody and his brother and sister wears jewels and fancy expensive clothing for absolutely no reason other than looking cool.  I doubt Rhaegar is any different than any other high lord in that respect

Also, I think the reason nobody has made the connection between Rhaegar and blood magic is because we've been given absolutely no reason to do so.

The only blood mages I can remember from the main series are Melisandre and Maggy the Frog.  Melisandre is a foreign worshipper of a foreign god, and Maggy merely used a few drops.  I think whatever Daenerys did was mostly by accident.  OK I forgot MMD but that's still not that much.  Certainly nothing to do with Rhaegar.

[SaffronLady]

7 minutes ago, Nevets said:

Also, I think the reason nobody has made the connection between Rhaegar and blood magic is because we've been given absolutely no reason to do so.

I think ruby symbolism does mean something, just not outright blood magic. That's too specific for a gemstone that appears 65 times throughout the verse.

[LongRider]

nvm

Edited July 16, 2023 by LongRider

[chrisdaw]

Yes he was, at first he thought it was himself, then he thought it was Aegon, then he thought it was all three, though likely he changed his mind by the end, and I explain it comprehensively in the topic in my sig.

[Tradecraft]

On 7/16/2023 at 4:52 AM, Nevets said:

I hate to break this to you, but everybody and his brother and sister wears jewels and fancy expensive clothing for absolutely no reason other than looking cool.  I doubt Rhaegar is any different than any other high lord in that respect

Also, I think the reason nobody has made the connection between Rhaegar and blood magic is because we've been given absolutely no reason to do so.

The only blood mages I can remember from the main series are Melisandre and Maggy the Frog.  Melisandre is a foreign worshipper of a foreign god, and Maggy merely used a few drops.  I think whatever Daenerys did was mostly by accident.  OK I forgot MMD but that's still not that much.  Certainly nothing to do with Rhaegar.

Let's keep it civil here bud. 

 

Melissandre does blood magic and she is covered in Rubies. 

She spends time on Dragonstone, like Rhaegar. 

She's obsessed with prophecy, like Rhaegar. 

I'm not pulling this out of a hat. 

This isn't a gotcha. 

 

And while you or anyone can just say it's a coincidence, I'm not inclined to do the same. Not with these books. 

The author likes tying back people and ideas to each other, even if they're not 100% the same. 

[Tradecraft]

On 7/16/2023 at 5:00 AM, SaffronLady said:

I think ruby symbolism does mean something, just not outright blood magic. That's too specific for a gemstone that appears 65 times throughout the verse.

It could also be R'llhor worship. 

[Tradecraft]

On 7/16/2023 at 12:17 AM, LongRider said:

Glad to have that cleared up.

Do I have to say it's a typo

[Frey family reunion]

On 7/15/2023 at 4:37 PM, kissdbyfire said:

We've been told Rhaegar was obsessed with "prophecy(ies)*, not with hatching dragons like so many of his ancestors. If his obsession was like so many other Targs and we never hear a thing about it, it would be bad writing and an asspull, both unlikely to be employed by Martin. 

It appears that the prophecies and the dragons went hand in hand.

Quote

“No one ever looked for a girl,” he said. “It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought … the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.

 

[Frey family reunion]

We also know that Rhaegar had an obsession with Summerhall, and Summerhall dealt with the Targaryen’s obsession with dragons.

Quote

“It was the shadow of Summerhall that haunted him, was it not?”
            “Yes. And yet Summerhall was the place the prince loved best. He would go there from time to time, with only his harp for company. Even the knights of the Kingsguard did not attend him there. He liked to sleep in the ruined hall, beneath the moon and stars, and whenever he came back he would bring a song. 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.”

Quote

“He is always with the red woman, and … he is not in his right mind, I fear. This talk of a stone dragon … madness, I tell you, sheer madness. Did we learn nothing from Aerion Brightfire, from the nine mages, from the alchemists? Did we learn nothing from Summerhall? No good has ever come from these dreams of dragons,”

 

[Frey family reunion]

Aemon also seems to know men (plural) who have done worse than what Jon feared that Stannis might want to do to Mance’s son.

Quote

Burning dead children had ceased to trouble Jon Snow; live ones were another matter. Two kings to wake the dragon. The father first and then the son, so both die kings. The words had been murmured by one of the queen’s men as Maester Aemon had cleaned his wounds. Jon had tried to dismiss them as his fever talking. Aemon had demurred. “There is power in a king’s blood,” the old maester had warned, “and better men than Stannis have done worse things than this.”

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Frey family reunion

[Sandy Clegg]

10 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

There is power in a king’s blood,” the old maester had warned, “and better men than Stannis have done worse things than this.”

I'm worried this might be a reference to Egg, when becomes king  

[Frey family reunion]

13 minutes ago, Sandy Clegg said:

I'm worried this might be a reference to Egg, when becomes king  

Probably, but it may not be limited to Aegon.  Aemon did say men.

[John Suburbs]

On 7/15/2023 at 5:26 PM, Tradecraft said:

 

No wonder why Rhaegar was so gloomy!

 

But seriously, how come nobody makes the link between blood magic and Rhaegar? 

 

How precisely do you think he was going to hatch dragons? Ask them nicely to hatch? 

 

Dany knew the secret. She sacrificed Mirri Maz Duur like it was nothing. 

 

The question is who was he planning to sacrifice? 

Himself? Plus others? Were those others willing to go down with the ship? 

 

 

 

Rhaegar was planning to do this? Or Aerys?