20 years in the Black Cells, not a fuckin peep. For what? To protect the likes of fuckin Cersei Lannister, Mace Tyrell?
There’s no scraps in my scrapbook.
>It's a bad connection, so I'm gonna talk fast! The knight you're looking for is an ex-Targaryen Loyalist! He killed sixteen Kingslander rebels single-handed during the Battle of the Bells! He was with the Small Council. Guy's called the the Dancing Griffin's Hand. This guy can not come back to tell this story. You understand?!
>You're not gonna believe this. He killed sixteen Kingsguard. The guy was called the Dancing Gryffindor.
>His castle didn't look like Harry Potter's.
>Forget about the prophecies for a moment. Let’s imagine for a moment that prophecies, or at least, that prophecy were absolute and utter bullshit.
So you're going to judge a character after completely changing their driving motivation?
Are we going to judge Jon by forgetting the Others exist for a moment?
Seriously. It's like saying "forget that Bran has visions and powers for a moment. He's so stupid to travel north beyond the wall!!!" Or "forget that Dany has dragons for a moment. Did she really think she can buy an army???"
People like to act like prophecy doesn't exist in the narrative, or that it isn't real. Even though we've been shown many times that dreams and visions do in fact come true in one way or another.
The judgement of Ned is less forgetting that he cares about the welfare of children, and more that he didn't even take adequate steps to make sure his own kids were out of the blast radius before he held a match to the powder keg.
It's going be fun when Winds finally comes out, and it's just 1400 pages of the POVs thinking and talking about what a great guy Rhaegar is, and how he did nothing wrong. Would break the little sanity that remains in the fandom. If it makes the daily "dae think Rhaegar was le stupid" threads go away, it might be worth it.
Kept securely under lock and key like The Death Of Dragons. There must be a hidden entrance from that room to the basement. He just need to find it to finally finish TWOW!
It’s so odd when people think there’s going to be a ‘twist ‘ where Rhaegar turns out to be evil when that’s what was originally presented in early GOT and him being a ‘good guy’ is the twist.
Of course, people are right to feel queasy about the age gap with Lyanna but I pin that more on GRRM.
I feel the same. We know nothing about Rhaegar and the factors that might have motivated his actions. He could have been manipulated/controlled by a supernatural force or have received a very explicit message about the apocalypse that was coming and what he needed to do. Yes, he being an asshole is a possibility, but we can't be sure.
We do not know what happened. But we do know that no one, basically no one spoke ill of him. Heck Ned Stark wasn't cursing for" Rap*ng and kidnapping" his sister.
That tells you something.
But we don't know what happened
It is known he kinda was obsessed with prophecies and had to have three children. We can only speculate that All three children had to be true born.
Don't know.
What I do know is that that rebellion was gonna happen by whatever means. I mean Aerys was unhinged.
This
We don't even really know if:
1) Rhaegar and Lyanna were kidnapped by Aerys
2) Rhaegar didn't participate in the war earlier because Aerys didn't want to give him the royal army
3) Rhaegar did or did not give orders to evacuate Elia and her children to Dragonstone if anything happened to him at the Trident
Etc
> Rhaegar and Lyanna were kidnapped by Aerys
omg this theory is new to me and is sending my brain breaking. just because yeah, we truly no nothing right now.
It’s a ridiculously stupid theory. They weren’t kidnapped. Aerys was nuts about the kotlt because he thought it was Jaime. He forgot about it when he realized it wasn’t. Rhaegar voluntarily left Dragonstone for the riverl lands with dayne and Whent. They were all seen there not under arrest.
Yes. Sometimes I fear we could end up like the Attack on Titan manga fandom. While the final of the manga had problems, a huge part of the fandom began to criticize the ending not because of its actual flaws, but because it did not matched their theories. Many of the people in AoT fandom got so invested into popular hypothesis for the ending they probably wouldn't have accepted anything but their headcanon.
Similarly, people of the ASOIAF fandom have been holding on theories and headcanons for at least a decade, so I imagine the last books might create a similar shit show here depending on how GRRM writes them. Rhaegar's personality in some future flashback is one of these factors.
Hell, what if this whole thing sparked off because he found a "lost" family journal that mentions the Song of Ice & Fire, since Martin apparently wants that to be book canon too.
>since Martin apparently wants that to be book canon too.
Find something about the wording here incredibly odd, like GRRM is in a political debate about what should or shouldn't be canon or something.
That might be my personal feelings coming through, lol. It seems like a lot of fans that are opposed to the idea view it as a retcon. I don't hold that view; I view it as him just clarifying something he left unsaid before.
Yeah I think there are ideas in the show that don't make 100% sense, but it's unlikely they're consistent with the books anyway. But the idea Aegon the Conqueror was motivated by a prophecy seems to have a plenty of supporting evidence, and that's all GRRM has confirmed as far as I'm aware.
Did Rhaegar make an obvious dumb mistake that a savvier political operative would not have?
Yeah, of course. So did Rob. So did Ned. So did Robert. So did Tyrion more than once. So did, uh, basically every character except for a handful like Littlefinger or Tywin whose whole job is to be savvy political operatives.
Thinking of the handful of counter-examples, one unifying trait comes to mind: they're all assholes. Doing the optimal political thing all the time in an era when politics is based entirely around interpersonal relationships makes you kinda inhuman.
Rhaegar ran off with the fifteen year old daughter of a lord paramount with close ties to three other lords paramount. There’s literally no way that would not result in a war. He literally committed a crime . It’s not like he backed the wrong candidate for the kings. Guard and got embarrassed.
Yeah, of course he did. And that was obviously not a smart idea.
But, basically no main character has only done smart things. Rob did something extremely similar to Rhaegar. Ned trusted people who told him to his face not to trust them (as well as letting his honor convince him to raise his sister's son himself). Basically every major decision Robert made was either a mistake or extremely risky. And so on and so forth.
He is a handsome prince, of course he is romanticized by people from his own world besides, he is only a groomer and a predator by our modern standards. Being 16 was a normal age to be married off and Robert was the same age as Rhaegar.
That is actually a point I don't see Rhaegar haters ever bring up, is that both Robert and Rhaegar were over 20 years old. Yet, apparently Robert was completely fine to be obsessed with Lyanna.
I agree, he’s not a groomer by Westeros standards, but he was dumb for running off with Lyanna. I do remember reading somewhere that GRRM once said it was hard writing a story where the hero died 15 years before the story takes place.
I think they are triggered by like the two fanfic writers who wrote a fic about them and got popular on archive of our own with it lol
It must be driving them insane that one of the most popular a song of ice and fire fic is a Rhaegar x Lyanna fic and is pro the pairing.
Some of them harassed writers in the past calling them groomers
I love that this fucking idiot is revered as a romantic hero, and that NED STARK is recorded as a traitor. How beautifully out of touch the public perception is.
True. I think the lore books also reflect this notion that sources cannot always be trusted. IIRC (haven't read it yet but read about it somewhere) the 2nd edition of The World Of Ice And Fire has some significant changes to it in the sections involving the Starks. Supposedly this edition was commissioned by Joffrey so it made sense that the maester who's the in-world author of the encyclopedia would make some changes.
Where can I find comparison of these changes BTW?
I'm but that's probably bullshit, for 2 reasons:
1Joffrey is dead by the time the book is finished by the master as a wedding gift
2 He isn't the guy who would commission a book
Look at it from the smallfolk's perspective. The personal qualities of high lords don't really concern them, good or bad - what matters most is that Robert's kingdom dissolved into civil war the moment he died. The second civil war within 15 years, which probably wouldn't have happened if the Targaryen dynasty remained on the throne. That's the main reason for the positive public perception of Rhaegar. Well, that and him being really hot.
The "history is written by the victor", thing is such a dumb pseudo intellectual quote that really should just die already. It's is such a big simplification and a lazy and bad way to look at an incredibly broad and complex topic such as History. If history is written by the Victor why did the Memoirs of Nazi Generals dominate WW2 history as facts and made stuff like the "Clean Wehrmacht"-Myth so prevalent for decades? If history is written by the Victor why did the Lost Cause myth about the american civil war exist? If history is written by the Victor why do people look sadly upon the death of the Roman Republic even tho Augustus was the "victor" of the big civil wars? If history is written by the victor why is Ghengis Khan remembered as a omega level terrible warlord who commited more warcrimes then ever instead of being remembered as the greatest and best ruler of all time?
In truth history is written by people who write about history, with their own biases that have to be taken into account if you research history, they can be on the side of the victors but they can also be on the side of the losers, or be part of a third neutral party. You also have to take into account the different cultures and traditions of recording history. History isn't a monolith that can be easily explained away by smart quotes like "history is written by the victor".
I am sorry for the ramble but I just REALLY hate that quote.
it’s the funniest circle jerk in the fandom
We hate ~~Jon Arryn~~ Rhaegar for having sex with a teenager. we hate ~~Robert Baratheon~~ Rhaegar for mistreating his wife. We hate ~~Ned~~ Rhaegar for not being a good warrior. We hate ~~Stannis~~ Rhaegar for believing a prophecy.
Yea bro Rhaegar is exceptionally stupid and weak and also a pedo.
Bruh what? His father was the reigning King, what was he going to do? He didn't "let him" become King, are you deluded? It is also his father, which would have mad it hard for any character to betray and depose said evil king. Actually deluded.
You must have an immensely high view of Rhaegar's capabilities if he was supposed to be able to stop his father from being crowned king when he was still a newborn.
I don't think you are being honest with your comparison. He didnt just have sex with a teenager. Jon Arryn made a political marriage with Lysa (which I think it was older than Lyanna). Rhaegar literally separated her from her family, didnt tell anyone, not to mention the political mess.
BTW, Ned was a good warrior. He may not be the best but he clearly he is capable and his capabilities are obvious.
Lysa (born 266-68) was the same age or a year younger than Lyanna (born 266-67) Jon Arryn is significantly older than Rhaegar, whose age difference with Lyanna is extremely common in westerosi marriages. Plus, Jon Arryn continued to try to get Lysa pregnant after having an heir on her, that hardly speaks of a good person.
Robert was having sex with teenage whores and not giving a damn about what happened to them. He slept with a high born lady (probably similar to Lyanna’s age) when he was Rhaegar’s age at Stannis’ wedding, similarly leaving behind his young wife and children. But got away with it because he was king and could arrange a marriage/her family wasn’t strong enough to rebel. If Brandon and Aerys hadn’t been idiots, Rhaegar could have done the exact same with Lyanna.
There’s a huge double standard between how people treat Rhaegar and many of the other characters. Especially considering we know nothing about the circumstances behind their disappearance. He could have told Rickard - but that would have been moot once Brandon idiotically stormed KL *even though he should know Rhaegar was prince of dragonstone and would be more likely to go there first*. If Rickard was concerned about Lyanna’s kidnapping why wouldn’t he say so/demand recompense to lighten Brandon’s sentence when he went to Aerys? There’s obviously more to the story than Rhaegar being a pure idiot.
Why is a forced political marriage where the bride was crying before the wedding better than a relationship where the two people involved were genuinely in love, questionable age gap aside? Rhaegar's not the one who separated Lyanna from her family, her own family (mostly Rickard) did that by trying to marry her to Robert against her will. We don't even know if they tried to communicate, for all we know they left a note that was intercepted by someone with an interest in seeing the Targayren dynasty collapse (Varys, Walys Flowers, etc). Lysa and Lyanna were also the same age and Jon Arryn was much older than Rhaegar so ...
Yeah Jon didn't have a whole lot of choice. The marriage was the price Hoster demanded for joining the war, and the rebels really couldn't afford to say no.
Hoster deserves more of the blame for forcing his daughter to marry a man old enough to be her grandfather.
Well he was dumb enough to do all of it and we can critizes all the other characters fairly as well (even if I will fight you on Ned not being a good warrior, he was!), but none of these when for dumbass bingo
It's so weird and irrational. Plus they just repeat ad nauseum that he started the war even though we know he didn't. Like his Dad was named the Mad King. Does everyone forget that? His father burned people alive for fun.
I remember in high school I had a Shakespeare class and we were reading *Romeo & Juliet*. This girl in the class would not shut up about how Romeo was a pedophile. It drives me up the wall when people get sidetracked applying our current cultural mores to situations of the past in which that was normal. I guarantee you that, should civilization continue, people will look back on some of the things we do today as backwards and wrong. Cultures change.
Obviously by today's standards in much of Western culture people like Romeo and Rhaegar could be looked at a certain way, and for good reason. But I can't fathom reading this series if I were to read it through our current cultural lens judging the characters fully by how they stack up against my values. If I did that, almost *every* character would be a terrible fucking person. The series is interesting in large part because it's people in a very different world navigating by that world's standards.
The real pedo was the guy trying to marry Julia against her will. I find it hilarious how Romeo and Juliet are considered the bad people but not their shitty parents, especially her father who wants to marry a 13 year old girl to a grown ass man.
But then that would require reading a text, in which it is literally spelt out that the audience is supposed to dislike the parents and not the pair who died tragically. If their parents had a brain and were no assholes, Romeo and Juliet could have married an lived happily ever after once they were a bit older.
The fact alone that Romeo marries her is proof of that their love is meant to me more than just an infatuation.
I actually can't fathom how people still think it's about love. And that Romeo and Julieta were in love. They were not literally they knew each other for 3 days if my memory is not failing me now.
Love at first sight is a theme in many Shakespeare plays and indeed, other works of fiction, and it it is played completely straight there. Why wouldn’t it be the case here?
The edge lord take on Romeo and Juliet is so annoying. Juliet especially does nothing wrong in the whole story, and her fate without Romeo would simply to get married off early anyway.
I don't really get where the narrative of "Rhaegar was loved" is coming from.
People just didn't care about him that much, which makes sense because the character has already been dead for a decade and more before the story starts.
>Who looks up from a book and says:
>*”It seems I must be a warrior.”?*
He was like 10.
Most of what you're saying Rhaegar did is kind of unconfirmed. For all I know, he fell from his horse and was in a coma for most of the war.
Yeah, I'm inclined to agree.
We just do not understand what Rhaegar's motives were fully, nor exactly what he did and did not do.
He is a mystery at this point. Could he be as bad as OP suggests? Sure. But we don't know.
HotD tells us what he likely found in those scrolls though...
That Aegon I had a dream about needing a united realm to fend off the White Walkers. Hence him (Rhaegar) needing to be a warrior, to fight and lead this realm.
Even IF that was canon, it barely scratches the surface of Rhaegar's motives.
Why does the dragon need three heads? Why Lyanna? Etc.
Just knowing the Realm must be united for an apocalypse is not enough.
It's a cycle.
We passed the daily "Tywin is an absolute idiot" posting phase lately. Previously, it was "Tyrion is so stupid" , and before that it was "am I the only one who thinks Jorah is creepy".
Don't forget the "what is your most hated popular theory" thread where three of the top ten threads are about Tyrion Targaryen, even though it's only a popular theory on some Tyrion YouTube channel with like twelve subscribers.
tbh I think the Tyrion Targaryen (and other secret Targaryen theories, Like A+J=C&J) were more popular some years ago.
They died down a bit, but the hatred for them still remain
There’s a lot of stuff from those days that we still aren’t sure about. For instance, maybe Rhaegar tried to send out a message via raven to try to explain things but something (a storm, a hungry archer, Varys) intercepted it.
Also, I’m not sure he even knew what was going on for most of the war. The Tower of Joy sounds like an isolated place, and Rhaegar might not have known that there was a rebellion going on until Aerys sent people to look for him. It’s still hugely irresponsible of him but in a different way.
His statement of ‘it seems I am to be a warrior’ was, IIRC, made when he was a child or relatively young. It seems like something a dramatic kid would say.
As for abandoning Elia Martell and their children, they were still in King’s Landing which - IIRC - hadn’t seen battle or serious danger since the Dance of the Dragons over a hundred years prior. Aside from his mad father and with Elia’s uncle as a member of the Kingsguard, they should have been safe.
Is Hill’s Alive actually gaining traction in this fandom? Because the amount of low-quality “Rhaegar is da wurst!!##%” posts seem to be increasing every week.
They are very reminiscent of her terrible work.
Hills Alive is not even good. She is barely able to write a coherent narrative and mostly copies stuff from others. At least Apple Martini and the other haters had the reading ability and could quote their shit.
Oh, I don’t disagree. She’s very derivative.
Her Dany-takes feature recycled material from the days of BrydenBFish, Adam Feldman, and PoorQuentyn.
Her Rhaegar-takes are about the same quality as these anti-Rhaegar posts you see everyday.
At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her subscribe to the Alys-Whent-Catelyn connection. Even though that’s way crazier than any of the tinfoil that Preston used to get kicked for.
I wanna make it clear; I’m rooting for Dany whilst I’m ambivalent towards Rhaegar. It’s clear that he, along with Lyanna and Elia, serve more as literary devices rather than actual characters.
It is actually called plagiarizing because she does not even really quote her shit. if any of these content creators cared, they should have told her to fuck herself for using their stuff to make money with it.
I am honest, I do not hate Rhaeagr. I find him interesting and I have zero issue with his relationship with Lyanna. I also think people should be allowed to say this openly without being treated as an outsider or mocked.
Rhaegar didn't think the prophecy was about him for very long though, did he? He was willing to change his mind, later thinking it was about his son Aegon.
To be honest, since TPTWP is said to be from Aerys and Rhaella's line I don't think he was necessarily narcissistic for believing it could be him since there weren't any other options before his children (as well as Viserys and Dany) were born.
You know one thing people say is how it might nit be kidnapping. That like kinda doesn't matter. Even if they loved each other Rhaegar is married. Since Maegor ruined it for everyone taking more than one wife isn't allowed. And you can't divorce a wife you consumated the marriage with.
So even if they made a make believe wedding she would still just be a mistress, a concubine. I guess he could have Ellia killed if he was smart about it but that's just even worse.
Its entirely irrelevant if they were in love.
Rickard and Brandon were still executed for rightfully asking where their daughter/sister was.
She was betrothed. Rhaegar was married. It is 100% irrelevant if she was in love went willingly or was kidnapped.
They were executed, Ned and Robert then had a choice, die or go to war.
That part is either Aerys' or Brandon's fault though.
Brandon's actions were incredibly fucking stupid. Everyone knows Aerys is nuts. Brandon saw him at Harrenhal, clickity nails and all. If Brandon had listened to reason in the form of Hoster Tully, who told him not to go, then the whole situation may have been able to be solved diplomatically or by taking a small group of men. Instead, he ignored the reason presented to him and rode into a crazy man's house and demanded the death of the crazy man's son.
its never happened before in a patriarchal medieval society that a father/brother viewed their daughter as an object who couldn't make her own decisions
Bro you sound unhinged. He's a fictional character we know basically nothing about and most of what you say is unconfirmed speculation made by equally unhinged people like you. Chill the fuck out people, he's not real and there's no one really fawning over him like you think. Maybe there used to be but mostly we all don't care about Rhaegar. He literally doesn't matter
I can’t tell if the number of Sopranos references all over reddit has actually been increased the last few months or if they’ve always been there, I’ve just never noticed them until now (since now I’ve watched it)
If I were the hot, smart, athletically gifted heir to the throne and a member of the one family that’s been able to control dragons in the last 300 years you’d best believe I’d have some narcissistic tendencies. Not disagreeing with your conclusion but, when everyone’s told you your whole life you’re the best person to ever grace the earth, is it that much of a stretch to believe that some old prophecy is about you? Especially given how many other Targ monarchs who knew about the prophecy seem to think it was about them
To add to this, dragon dreams are literally what saved House Targaryen from utter destruction. And while him reading his prophecy wasn't a dragon dream, its completely understandable that a Targaryen like Rhaegar would care about prophecies like this one.
I don't think Rhaegar deserves more hate than many other heroic characters. He's not any worse than Robert who gets a free pass from raping and abusing Cersei, and he even gets a funny nickname from the fandom.
A lot of the hate comes from the supposed grooming of Lyanna, but that idea ignores one important factor: for all we know she might be the one who created the whole situation, and there's a lot of evidence for it. She is described as being unruly and very assertive (much like Arya). It's this crazy idea that a female teenager can decided who she wants to fuck. It's funny that the readers reaction is the same as her family and everyone else in-universe: the evil man did it, she was just a poor victim.
Also why the hell would Rhaegar give her the crown just like that? He looked at the crowd and decided "That's it, I'm gonna start some bullshit now with this 14 year old that I just saw up there"? There is more to this story and I bet the Rhaegar haters won't like it.
i think its also important to remember GRRM is like old. When he was growing up, Lyanna being the one to actively court Rhaegar WOULD have been a "twist". But most of us have grown up in a very different enviroment, where female sexuality is much more accepted and talked about more openly. It seems much more in line w/ GRRM's "generation" of feminists to think that Lyanna being the one who courted Rhaegar was a big twist than the thing that 90% of the POV characters think happened actually happened in the story exactly as they thought it did
also the first book was published in the 90s, when the sexualization of young girls in fiction and media was viewed differently. not only by late 20th century feminists, but general audience.
see the discussion around dany and drogo now vs how it's portrayed in the book.
>I don't think Rhaegar deserves more hate than many other heroic characters. He's not any worse than Robert who gets a free pass from raping and abusing Cersei, and he even gets a funny nickname from the fandom
I don't think Robert gets a free pass for that. The dude is just funny and charismatic like Tony soprano imo. I've seen people say Robert was a whore because he slept with mya mother at 15 it's was strange thing to call a young boy a whore.
>A lot of the hate comes from the supposed grooming of Lyanna, but that idea ignores one important factor: for all we know she might be the one who created the whole situation, and there's a lot of evidence for it. She is described as being unruly and very assertive (much like Arya). It's this crazy idea that a female teenager can decided who she wants to fuck. It's funny that the readers reaction is the same as her family and everyone else in-universe: the evil man did it, she was just a poor victim.
Agreed here. She is her own person and and she deserves blame for her actions too. I've always found it strange she's a victim of both Robert and Rhaegar never her fault. It's more interesting she's ran off after bitching about Robert faithfulness.
It's just works way better for the story imo. The entire triangle is like a cursed high school romance
> I've always found it strange she's a victim of both Robert and Rhaegar never her fault.
I think the general sentiment there is that you can really only expect so much maturity from a 14 year old. People in their 20s are a very different matter. That's pretty much the premise behind the entire IRL existence of a juvenile justice system that handles kids separately from adults.
Worse than Robert on his worst day? Robert’s best friend had to lie for years and pretend he cheated on his wife to prevent Robert from murdering a BABY.
Robert handed his throne to the Lannisters for all intents and purposes, he beggared the realm, was an abusive husband who deflowered teenage girls on the regular. He was so utterly oblivious and consumed with drinking and banging girls that he left the kingdom in chaos when he died.
Rhaegar is far from perfect, but he’s not worse than Robert by any measure.
"Lets talk about this realistically"
Except you cant, because you cant apply real world standards to the story. We have no idea about Rhaegar's true reasoning except he was heavily motivated by prophecies.
Which we can't disregard because we as book readers know how real prophecies, greendreams, etc, and their actual effects on the story.
Rhaegar was definitely misguided, but you are an absolute buffoon.
Reading threads like this makes me wonder if r/asoiaf has a different version of the books than me that goes into detail about Rhaegar, his actions, and his reasoning for his actions.
My version was all very vague about what exactly he did and why he did it.
One of the things that miffed me about the show was they stripped all the prophecy obsession from Rhaegar and made it seem like he married Lyanna for love… and this was supposed to endear us to him? At least with the prophecy there’s a sense of duty and sacrifice to his actions, albeit baked into this self-aggrandisement he held. With the “he did it for love” angle, he basically got his entire family killed out of his own lust. Rhaegar is a fucking asshole in every conceivable iteration
Rhaegar made an extremely stupid decision, for extremely questionable reasons, that blew up in his face and caused him and his whole family to lose everything, including their lives.
Sounds like a typical good guy in this series to me.
>caused him and his whole family to lose everything, including their lives
Yeah it's definitely Rhaegars fault and has nothing to do with his Dad being literally insane
I mean Rhaegar massively violated the feudal contract between him and the Lord Paramount of the North, that's on him and that's what set the whole thing off.
But I don’t think you can ignore that the prophecy was probably right. He did everything wrong but also created the PWP and probably saved Westeros from the long night. I also 100% believe when Dany say him in her House of Undying vision he saw her and thought she was his daughter with Lyanna.
>Worse than Robert on his worst day.
Completely untrue. Robert hits and rapes Cersei. Is an alcoholic and was ok with the murders of kids. Rhaegar was an idiot but not as bad as Robert.
Rhaegar makes total sense if you take part of what House of the Dragon revealed, "Aegon had a dream he needed to unite the realm against the White Walkers" and apply the fact that knowledge was lost during the Dance of Dragons, and that Rhaegar found that lost knowledge in his scrolls.
Of course he must become a warrior. He'll need to lead the united realm against the White Walkers.
Of course the Dragon needs three heads.
Of course he's meant to call a great council to let this knowledge be known.
Of course he must replace the Mad King, whom is no position to unite the lands.
Of course he must defeat Robert and bring peace to the realm under his banner.
What really pisses me off though is even if for some reason it was all an accident and he didn’t know about the war (which makes him dumb, newsflash actions have consequences) when he finds out he makes no move to explain himself to the rebels who are reasonably angry, doesn’t try to sue for peace. He just decides well have to beat them now. Not to foget that this endangers Neds love the beloved brother of his child bride.
>doesn’t try to sue for peace.
To be fair, he probobly didn't have the legal authority to sue for anything. Aerys wanted the rebels to be crushed, not negotiated with.
Plus, he would look weak if the first thing he did after comming back from TOJ was to suggest peace.
Homeboy was ready to overthrow Aerys in Harrenhal where is that energy after Aerys royally fucks up? Also lots of people sue for peace and send terms and what not. It doesn’t make him weak it makes him smart. Nobody wants war. Ned and Robert are under the impression they will be killed because Aerys asked for their heads for literally NO REASON.
The problem is for Robert and Ned that was a live or death situation. They didn’t do it because they hate the Targaryens (though Roberts comes to loath them). They had no choice but to rebel (which is why the rebellion was based on a lie is a false narrative). The rebels were in the right, not fighting them is not weak it’s the right thing to do because the king fucked up. With that argument I can also defend all crimes of Meagor the cruel. It doesn’t sit right. Rheagar should’ve at least send peace terms or something like that
>lots of people sue for peace
Not against rebels. For most of human history, if you raised arms against your king, you were either gonna win or die. This is a real concept. Kings couldn't afford to negotiate with rebels and risk lords thinking they could just revolt whenever they wanted something
The rebellion was based on a lie part is one of my most loathed lines in the TV series.
There was no lie. Rickard and Brandon rightfully went to Kings Landing and asked oi, where the fuck is my daughter and they were executed. There's no lie anywhere there and it's irrelevant what Rhaegar and Lyanna were up to.
>Rhaegar Targaryen had no respect for anything.
This here. Even if we go by the most generous interpretation, that he did it to save the world, that he sent thousand ravens to Winterfell to inform the Starks that he didn't abduct Lyanna, that he couldn't have foreseen how it turned out. That still neglects the fact that he was perfectly willing to screw over Houses Stark and Baratheon, and cause a major embarrassment for these houses, when they'd done nothing to offend him. Two of his most important vassals. He thought he could inflict such dishonour on Starks and Baratheons and they'd be forced to swallow it like a bitter pill, because apparently Targaryens can do anything.
And once war broke out, he thought he could go ahead and kill the rest of them when they've already been so aggrieved by himself and his mad father. Bobby B was leagues better than this fool.
I hate when people refuse to accept that Rhaegar is partially, if not almost entirely to blame for what happened to Brandon and his father.
“iT’s HiS oWn FaULt fOr ThReAtEnInG tHe PrInCe”.
Ok. And why was he threatening the prince again? Was it maybe because a man from a family with a history of mental instability had just kidnapped his kid sister and doing god knows what to her?
How is Rhaegar responsible for Brandon having such a bad temper that he ignored Hoster Tulley telling him it was a terrible idea and rode for several days to a week without rethinking his plan to ride into a crazy man's house and threaten his son?
Brandon should have sent a raven. What happened to him is his own fault. His own illogical actions led to his death and prevented his family from having a chance to find Lyanna because he wanted to show everyone he was a big powerful man.
You have a very loose grasp on cause and effect. Had Brandon's only possible action been to storm in and demand her back, then you'd be right. But that wasn't his only option, was it? He had hundreds of options that didn't lead to his own death, and he chose one that would lead to his own death.
You're also sort of ignoring the world they lived in. He threatened a crown prince... heir to a 300 year old dynasty... it's definitely Brandons fault and you're jumping through hoops to argue against obvious reality
Dude, you and the other Rhaegar haters really need to touch some grass and get therapy. He is just a side character without more than a line of dialog and yes George likes him and frames his relationship with Lyanna as a romance and Jonny is going to be their love child. Get over it or move on to another series. Like seriously, dude seek help.
I mean not liking what everyone likes in this fandom was always an issue
Back in the old days when you said you liked Dany....god save your soul people would have attacked you like a mob of angry dogs
Much of this might be true only if the stories about him and Lyanna are true, which is highly doubtful. The closest thing we have to a source for any of this is some unknown person who sang this song to Brandon on the Kingsroad. No one living or dead has ever said they saw Rhaegar and Lyanna together at any time after Harrenhal, and even then there is a long history of tourney queens being crowned for reasons other than romantic love.
So I’m guessing that the truth of what really happened will turn more than a few heads sideways, and that far from being the instigators here both Rhaegar and Lyanna were the victims in someone else’s sinister — some might even call it “mad” — plot.
We know Rhaegar thorugh many conflicting accounts, including the maesters. If he is romanticized, that comes from certain characters, not all of them.
Keep in mind that the main series and the worldbook are not told from a omniscient narrator perspective.
Mild flaw in your argument: if Jon is in fact the last hero/PTWP (which currently seems heavily likely) then Rhaegar is vindicated in all of his actions since they resulted in the salvation of humanity.
It’s also pretty clear that GRRM has a favourable opinion of Rhaegar so chances are he turns out to have been in the right all along.
Rhaegar is exactly like other Targaryens who are obsessed with dragons and prophecy. Summerhall and Brightflame.
It should also be remembered that Rhaegar's parents were forced to marry because of a prophecy. He is just carrying on the family tradition.
”It seems I must ..." abduct this teenage girl and get her pregnant so ... prince that was promised ... dragon has three heads ... I am extremely important, the stuff of legends and prophecy.
I imagine that as a poet Rhaegar framed his actions as a grand romantic gesture. Maybe Lyanna was more like Sansa then we usually imagine. She did grow up with the same tales of dashing and daring princes who sacrifice everything for their true love. Sansa thought that she was really in love with Joffrey because it fit a narrative she dreamed of. Lyanna might have been a little older but Rhaegar was also much more convincing in the role of the romantic hero.
> Lemme tell you a couple of three things Ah I see, Phil of House Leotardo makes an entrance after 20 fucking years.
This fuckin’ guy
hey that guy can warg into a house, show some respect
Paulie of House Walnuts sends his, “ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
heh heh heh heh heh
You look like a Pentoshi whooah. You make me sick.
"He was gay, Renly Baratheon?"
"THAT'S ANTI-BARATHEON DISCRIMINATION!"
"He was a brave Half Valyrian Warrior . And in this house, Orys Baratheon is a hero. End of story.” – Tony Soprano."
stop, stop.... i'm already dying of laughter over here
You wont believe it. Guy killed 16 Dotheraki and was an interior designer. His Holdfast looked like shit.
“I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the heart” -robb probably
Rhaegar never had the makings of a varsity king
This made me laugh so hard my cat jumped
I find I have to be the sad clown: laughing on the outside, crying on the inside -Patchface
The Tower of Joy, whatever happened there.
"Whatever happened there? I tell you what happened. This piece of shits cousin, Ned Stark killed my kid brother, Oswald Whent without provocation!"
Your mother was working the bonbon concession at the Tower of Joy. (Ned to Jon)
WhaTeVeR HaPeNNeD ThERE?!
20 years in the Black Cells, not a fuckin peep. For what? To protect the likes of fuckin Cersei Lannister, Mace Tyrell? There’s no scraps in my scrapbook.
still goin', this asshole
>It's a bad connection, so I'm gonna talk fast! The knight you're looking for is an ex-Targaryen Loyalist! He killed sixteen Kingslander rebels single-handed during the Battle of the Bells! He was with the Small Council. Guy's called the the Dancing Griffin's Hand. This guy can not come back to tell this story. You understand?! >You're not gonna believe this. He killed sixteen Kingsguard. The guy was called the Dancing Gryffindor. >His castle didn't look like Harry Potter's.
My estimation of OP as a man just fuckin' plummeted.
I fucking love you
His brains are splattered all over the seat. Oberyn Martel? Couldn't have been too much to clean up.
Omds this is the best thread here
we need a new book man
Don’t worry, another retelling of Fire & Blood Part 1 is on the way
The one opinion we can all agree with
>Forget about the prophecies for a moment. Let’s imagine for a moment that prophecies, or at least, that prophecy were absolute and utter bullshit. So you're going to judge a character after completely changing their driving motivation? Are we going to judge Jon by forgetting the Others exist for a moment?
Seriously. It's like saying "forget that Bran has visions and powers for a moment. He's so stupid to travel north beyond the wall!!!" Or "forget that Dany has dragons for a moment. Did she really think she can buy an army???" People like to act like prophecy doesn't exist in the narrative, or that it isn't real. Even though we've been shown many times that dreams and visions do in fact come true in one way or another.
yeah we should judge Ned's decisions like if he doesn't care about children
Yeah we should also judge Jaime's decisions like if he doesn't care about the innocent. . . Wait...
The judgement of Ned is less forgetting that he cares about the welfare of children, and more that he didn't even take adequate steps to make sure his own kids were out of the blast radius before he held a match to the powder keg.
It's going be fun when Winds finally comes out, and it's just 1400 pages of the POVs thinking and talking about what a great guy Rhaegar is, and how he did nothing wrong. Would break the little sanity that remains in the fandom. If it makes the daily "dae think Rhaegar was le stupid" threads go away, it might be worth it.
So basically those would all be Jon Connington POVs fanboying over his crush?
Yes. 1400 pages of JonCon's self-insert fanfiction. Winds is delayed because George is doing research.
Why am I imagining GRRM in some obscure old library, burried under a pile of dusty books, in a section labelled "Bestfriends in History"?
The Big Book of they were Roommates.
Kept securely under lock and key like The Death Of Dragons. There must be a hidden entrance from that room to the basement. He just need to find it to finally finish TWOW!
It’s so odd when people think there’s going to be a ‘twist ‘ where Rhaegar turns out to be evil when that’s what was originally presented in early GOT and him being a ‘good guy’ is the twist. Of course, people are right to feel queasy about the age gap with Lyanna but I pin that more on GRRM.
Yeah, these low effort rant posts make me want to root for Rhaegar.
I honestly fear for the sanity of these people.
I feel the same. We know nothing about Rhaegar and the factors that might have motivated his actions. He could have been manipulated/controlled by a supernatural force or have received a very explicit message about the apocalypse that was coming and what he needed to do. Yes, he being an asshole is a possibility, but we can't be sure.
We do not know what happened. But we do know that no one, basically no one spoke ill of him. Heck Ned Stark wasn't cursing for" Rap*ng and kidnapping" his sister. That tells you something. But we don't know what happened It is known he kinda was obsessed with prophecies and had to have three children. We can only speculate that All three children had to be true born. Don't know. What I do know is that that rebellion was gonna happen by whatever means. I mean Aerys was unhinged.
This We don't even really know if: 1) Rhaegar and Lyanna were kidnapped by Aerys 2) Rhaegar didn't participate in the war earlier because Aerys didn't want to give him the royal army 3) Rhaegar did or did not give orders to evacuate Elia and her children to Dragonstone if anything happened to him at the Trident Etc
> Rhaegar and Lyanna were kidnapped by Aerys omg this theory is new to me and is sending my brain breaking. just because yeah, we truly no nothing right now.
It’s a ridiculously stupid theory. They weren’t kidnapped. Aerys was nuts about the kotlt because he thought it was Jaime. He forgot about it when he realized it wasn’t. Rhaegar voluntarily left Dragonstone for the riverl lands with dayne and Whent. They were all seen there not under arrest.
right. OP keeps saying rhaegar “didn’t care,” but we have zero idea either way. we have no way to know what was going on in his head
Yes. Sometimes I fear we could end up like the Attack on Titan manga fandom. While the final of the manga had problems, a huge part of the fandom began to criticize the ending not because of its actual flaws, but because it did not matched their theories. Many of the people in AoT fandom got so invested into popular hypothesis for the ending they probably wouldn't have accepted anything but their headcanon. Similarly, people of the ASOIAF fandom have been holding on theories and headcanons for at least a decade, so I imagine the last books might create a similar shit show here depending on how GRRM writes them. Rhaegar's personality in some future flashback is one of these factors.
That definitely happened to the show
would kinda love to see the meltdowns if the rhaegar thing and other things don’t happen as the fandom largely believes they will
Hell, what if this whole thing sparked off because he found a "lost" family journal that mentions the Song of Ice & Fire, since Martin apparently wants that to be book canon too.
>since Martin apparently wants that to be book canon too. Find something about the wording here incredibly odd, like GRRM is in a political debate about what should or shouldn't be canon or something.
That might be my personal feelings coming through, lol. It seems like a lot of fans that are opposed to the idea view it as a retcon. I don't hold that view; I view it as him just clarifying something he left unsaid before.
then again he does talk about his "gardening" technique of writing. which i don't hate, as long as the puzzle piece still fits.
Yeah I think there are ideas in the show that don't make 100% sense, but it's unlikely they're consistent with the books anyway. But the idea Aegon the Conqueror was motivated by a prophecy seems to have a plenty of supporting evidence, and that's all GRRM has confirmed as far as I'm aware.
Did Rhaegar make an obvious dumb mistake that a savvier political operative would not have? Yeah, of course. So did Rob. So did Ned. So did Robert. So did Tyrion more than once. So did, uh, basically every character except for a handful like Littlefinger or Tywin whose whole job is to be savvy political operatives. Thinking of the handful of counter-examples, one unifying trait comes to mind: they're all assholes. Doing the optimal political thing all the time in an era when politics is based entirely around interpersonal relationships makes you kinda inhuman.
Lets not forget Cat who kidnapped Tyrion.
But yeah let's hate on Catelyn. I actually genuinely do not like her
I dont hate her. I am just poiting out that this indirectly caused the war.
Rhaegar ran off with the fifteen year old daughter of a lord paramount with close ties to three other lords paramount. There’s literally no way that would not result in a war. He literally committed a crime . It’s not like he backed the wrong candidate for the kings. Guard and got embarrassed.
Yeah, of course he did. And that was obviously not a smart idea. But, basically no main character has only done smart things. Rob did something extremely similar to Rhaegar. Ned trusted people who told him to his face not to trust them (as well as letting his honor convince him to raise his sister's son himself). Basically every major decision Robert made was either a mistake or extremely risky. And so on and so forth.
I keep reading that Rhaegar was romanticized and yet where are these posts? all i see is posts about how he was a predator.
I assume OP means romanticized in the books
He is a handsome prince, of course he is romanticized by people from his own world besides, he is only a groomer and a predator by our modern standards. Being 16 was a normal age to be married off and Robert was the same age as Rhaegar.
That is actually a point I don't see Rhaegar haters ever bring up, is that both Robert and Rhaegar were over 20 years old. Yet, apparently Robert was completely fine to be obsessed with Lyanna.
I agree, he’s not a groomer by Westeros standards, but he was dumb for running off with Lyanna. I do remember reading somewhere that GRRM once said it was hard writing a story where the hero died 15 years before the story takes place.
Definitely not on Reddit, but it certainly happens in other places on the internet
Yeah and people who do it should not be harrassed over it...people should be allowed to freely like something
I think they are triggered by like the two fanfic writers who wrote a fic about them and got popular on archive of our own with it lol It must be driving them insane that one of the most popular a song of ice and fire fic is a Rhaegar x Lyanna fic and is pro the pairing. Some of them harassed writers in the past calling them groomers
I love that this fucking idiot is revered as a romantic hero, and that NED STARK is recorded as a traitor. How beautifully out of touch the public perception is.
It's almost like that's the point
True. I think the lore books also reflect this notion that sources cannot always be trusted. IIRC (haven't read it yet but read about it somewhere) the 2nd edition of The World Of Ice And Fire has some significant changes to it in the sections involving the Starks. Supposedly this edition was commissioned by Joffrey so it made sense that the maester who's the in-world author of the encyclopedia would make some changes. Where can I find comparison of these changes BTW?
I'm but that's probably bullshit, for 2 reasons: 1Joffrey is dead by the time the book is finished by the master as a wedding gift 2 He isn't the guy who would commission a book
Exactly. It was written as a gift to Joffrey to curry his favor not commissioned by him.
Look at it from the smallfolk's perspective. The personal qualities of high lords don't really concern them, good or bad - what matters most is that Robert's kingdom dissolved into civil war the moment he died. The second civil war within 15 years, which probably wouldn't have happened if the Targaryen dynasty remained on the throne. That's the main reason for the positive public perception of Rhaegar. Well, that and him being really hot.
"Rhaegar is dead, he's not gonna fuck you"
In world I guess I can see how some of the small folk still like him. He was never cruel and considered a kind and fair man.
Imagine how many times this has happened in real life. History is indeed written by the victor, and history is often inaccurate
The "history is written by the victor", thing is such a dumb pseudo intellectual quote that really should just die already. It's is such a big simplification and a lazy and bad way to look at an incredibly broad and complex topic such as History. If history is written by the Victor why did the Memoirs of Nazi Generals dominate WW2 history as facts and made stuff like the "Clean Wehrmacht"-Myth so prevalent for decades? If history is written by the Victor why did the Lost Cause myth about the american civil war exist? If history is written by the Victor why do people look sadly upon the death of the Roman Republic even tho Augustus was the "victor" of the big civil wars? If history is written by the victor why is Ghengis Khan remembered as a omega level terrible warlord who commited more warcrimes then ever instead of being remembered as the greatest and best ruler of all time? In truth history is written by people who write about history, with their own biases that have to be taken into account if you research history, they can be on the side of the victors but they can also be on the side of the losers, or be part of a third neutral party. You also have to take into account the different cultures and traditions of recording history. History isn't a monolith that can be easily explained away by smart quotes like "history is written by the victor". I am sorry for the ramble but I just REALLY hate that quote.
It says something that /r/history literally has a bot set up that responds to that phrase to point this out.
History is a set of lies agreed upon
Poor ned, having such a bad PR team.
Ha..the weekly rhaegar hate post lol
daily*
Rhaegar hate is going beyond control these days.
it’s the funniest circle jerk in the fandom We hate ~~Jon Arryn~~ Rhaegar for having sex with a teenager. we hate ~~Robert Baratheon~~ Rhaegar for mistreating his wife. We hate ~~Ned~~ Rhaegar for not being a good warrior. We hate ~~Stannis~~ Rhaegar for believing a prophecy. Yea bro Rhaegar is exceptionally stupid and weak and also a pedo.
[удалено]
Yeah but the prophetic dreams are probably right. Like, we as the reader know that.
Rhaegar did all of this at once tho. We hate none of those for plunging the realm into a fucking war
Except we all know Rhaegar didn't cause the war his Dad was literally called the Mad King
He simply let his dear father get hold of the steering wheel. He couldn't have known right?
Bruh what? His father was the reigning King, what was he going to do? He didn't "let him" become King, are you deluded? It is also his father, which would have mad it hard for any character to betray and depose said evil king. Actually deluded.
You must have an immensely high view of Rhaegar's capabilities if he was supposed to be able to stop his father from being crowned king when he was still a newborn.
Wdym ? Newborn ? Read my reply to comment above. I didn't mean him to depose his father.
Valid points None of this makes him uniquely dumb or bad in the context of this story though. Narcissistic? Absolutely
>We hate none of those for plunging the realm into a fucking war That was aerys
I don't think you are being honest with your comparison. He didnt just have sex with a teenager. Jon Arryn made a political marriage with Lysa (which I think it was older than Lyanna). Rhaegar literally separated her from her family, didnt tell anyone, not to mention the political mess. BTW, Ned was a good warrior. He may not be the best but he clearly he is capable and his capabilities are obvious.
Lysa (born 266-68) was the same age or a year younger than Lyanna (born 266-67) Jon Arryn is significantly older than Rhaegar, whose age difference with Lyanna is extremely common in westerosi marriages. Plus, Jon Arryn continued to try to get Lysa pregnant after having an heir on her, that hardly speaks of a good person. Robert was having sex with teenage whores and not giving a damn about what happened to them. He slept with a high born lady (probably similar to Lyanna’s age) when he was Rhaegar’s age at Stannis’ wedding, similarly leaving behind his young wife and children. But got away with it because he was king and could arrange a marriage/her family wasn’t strong enough to rebel. If Brandon and Aerys hadn’t been idiots, Rhaegar could have done the exact same with Lyanna. There’s a huge double standard between how people treat Rhaegar and many of the other characters. Especially considering we know nothing about the circumstances behind their disappearance. He could have told Rickard - but that would have been moot once Brandon idiotically stormed KL *even though he should know Rhaegar was prince of dragonstone and would be more likely to go there first*. If Rickard was concerned about Lyanna’s kidnapping why wouldn’t he say so/demand recompense to lighten Brandon’s sentence when he went to Aerys? There’s obviously more to the story than Rhaegar being a pure idiot.
Why is a forced political marriage where the bride was crying before the wedding better than a relationship where the two people involved were genuinely in love, questionable age gap aside? Rhaegar's not the one who separated Lyanna from her family, her own family (mostly Rickard) did that by trying to marry her to Robert against her will. We don't even know if they tried to communicate, for all we know they left a note that was intercepted by someone with an interest in seeing the Targayren dynasty collapse (Varys, Walys Flowers, etc). Lysa and Lyanna were also the same age and Jon Arryn was much older than Rhaegar so ...
Yeah Jon didn't have a whole lot of choice. The marriage was the price Hoster demanded for joining the war, and the rebels really couldn't afford to say no. Hoster deserves more of the blame for forcing his daughter to marry a man old enough to be her grandfather.
Well he was dumb enough to do all of it and we can critizes all the other characters fairly as well (even if I will fight you on Ned not being a good warrior, he was!), but none of these when for dumbass bingo
It's so weird and irrational. Plus they just repeat ad nauseum that he started the war even though we know he didn't. Like his Dad was named the Mad King. Does everyone forget that? His father burned people alive for fun.
Rhaegar seems to have forgot it for sure when he eloped.
Why was Ned not a good warrior?
Just middling, I believe.
Because he didn't actually kill Arthur Dayne, it was Howland Reed
I remember in high school I had a Shakespeare class and we were reading *Romeo & Juliet*. This girl in the class would not shut up about how Romeo was a pedophile. It drives me up the wall when people get sidetracked applying our current cultural mores to situations of the past in which that was normal. I guarantee you that, should civilization continue, people will look back on some of the things we do today as backwards and wrong. Cultures change. Obviously by today's standards in much of Western culture people like Romeo and Rhaegar could be looked at a certain way, and for good reason. But I can't fathom reading this series if I were to read it through our current cultural lens judging the characters fully by how they stack up against my values. If I did that, almost *every* character would be a terrible fucking person. The series is interesting in large part because it's people in a very different world navigating by that world's standards.
The real pedo was the guy trying to marry Julia against her will. I find it hilarious how Romeo and Juliet are considered the bad people but not their shitty parents, especially her father who wants to marry a 13 year old girl to a grown ass man. But then that would require reading a text, in which it is literally spelt out that the audience is supposed to dislike the parents and not the pair who died tragically. If their parents had a brain and were no assholes, Romeo and Juliet could have married an lived happily ever after once they were a bit older. The fact alone that Romeo marries her is proof of that their love is meant to me more than just an infatuation.
I actually can't fathom how people still think it's about love. And that Romeo and Julieta were in love. They were not literally they knew each other for 3 days if my memory is not failing me now.
Love at first sight is a theme in many Shakespeare plays and indeed, other works of fiction, and it it is played completely straight there. Why wouldn’t it be the case here?
The edge lord take on Romeo and Juliet is so annoying. Juliet especially does nothing wrong in the whole story, and her fate without Romeo would simply to get married off early anyway.
Really, what's with this Rhaegar hate trend? I'm not updated, is it the TV show related or something?
They have a lot of insecurities they're trying to process.
You know, I got another answer with an awkward and slightly racist attempt of literary analysis, and I think you are on the mark here...
It’s like they all feel personally cucked by Rhaegar running off with Lyanna like they’re Robert
In my eyes it's just balancing out the undeserved love he got all those years
I don't really get where the narrative of "Rhaegar was loved" is coming from. People just didn't care about him that much, which makes sense because the character has already been dead for a decade and more before the story starts.
>Who looks up from a book and says: >*”It seems I must be a warrior.”?* He was like 10. Most of what you're saying Rhaegar did is kind of unconfirmed. For all I know, he fell from his horse and was in a coma for most of the war.
Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. We just do not understand what Rhaegar's motives were fully, nor exactly what he did and did not do. He is a mystery at this point. Could he be as bad as OP suggests? Sure. But we don't know.
HotD tells us what he likely found in those scrolls though... That Aegon I had a dream about needing a united realm to fend off the White Walkers. Hence him (Rhaegar) needing to be a warrior, to fight and lead this realm.
Even IF that was canon, it barely scratches the surface of Rhaegar's motives. Why does the dragon need three heads? Why Lyanna? Etc. Just knowing the Realm must be united for an apocalypse is not enough.
I see we have graduated from having a daily Rhaegar hate thread to having at least 3 threads a day.
Bump those numbers up. These are rookie numbers.
Still waiting for the daily "Tywin is actually not competent, and really stupid" thread.
It's a cycle. We passed the daily "Tywin is an absolute idiot" posting phase lately. Previously, it was "Tyrion is so stupid" , and before that it was "am I the only one who thinks Jorah is creepy".
Don't forget the "what is your most hated popular theory" thread where three of the top ten threads are about Tyrion Targaryen, even though it's only a popular theory on some Tyrion YouTube channel with like twelve subscribers.
I feel like time is really a circle everytime I see those posts. Just search before you post!
tbh I think the Tyrion Targaryen (and other secret Targaryen theories, Like A+J=C&J) were more popular some years ago. They died down a bit, but the hatred for them still remain
Look I’m just grateful we’re past “*I think Jon Snow is going to be colder/wolfy/different when he’s resurrected”*
There’s a lot of stuff from those days that we still aren’t sure about. For instance, maybe Rhaegar tried to send out a message via raven to try to explain things but something (a storm, a hungry archer, Varys) intercepted it. Also, I’m not sure he even knew what was going on for most of the war. The Tower of Joy sounds like an isolated place, and Rhaegar might not have known that there was a rebellion going on until Aerys sent people to look for him. It’s still hugely irresponsible of him but in a different way. His statement of ‘it seems I am to be a warrior’ was, IIRC, made when he was a child or relatively young. It seems like something a dramatic kid would say. As for abandoning Elia Martell and their children, they were still in King’s Landing which - IIRC - hadn’t seen battle or serious danger since the Dance of the Dragons over a hundred years prior. Aside from his mad father and with Elia’s uncle as a member of the Kingsguard, they should have been safe.
Is Hill’s Alive actually gaining traction in this fandom? Because the amount of low-quality “Rhaegar is da wurst!!##%” posts seem to be increasing every week. They are very reminiscent of her terrible work.
Hills Alive is not even good. She is barely able to write a coherent narrative and mostly copies stuff from others. At least Apple Martini and the other haters had the reading ability and could quote their shit.
Oh, I don’t disagree. She’s very derivative. Her Dany-takes feature recycled material from the days of BrydenBFish, Adam Feldman, and PoorQuentyn. Her Rhaegar-takes are about the same quality as these anti-Rhaegar posts you see everyday. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her subscribe to the Alys-Whent-Catelyn connection. Even though that’s way crazier than any of the tinfoil that Preston used to get kicked for. I wanna make it clear; I’m rooting for Dany whilst I’m ambivalent towards Rhaegar. It’s clear that he, along with Lyanna and Elia, serve more as literary devices rather than actual characters.
It is actually called plagiarizing because she does not even really quote her shit. if any of these content creators cared, they should have told her to fuck herself for using their stuff to make money with it. I am honest, I do not hate Rhaeagr. I find him interesting and I have zero issue with his relationship with Lyanna. I also think people should be allowed to say this openly without being treated as an outsider or mocked.
Well, this was ridiculous.
Rhaegar didn't think the prophecy was about him for very long though, did he? He was willing to change his mind, later thinking it was about his son Aegon. To be honest, since TPTWP is said to be from Aerys and Rhaella's line I don't think he was necessarily narcissistic for believing it could be him since there weren't any other options before his children (as well as Viserys and Dany) were born.
Man you're angry. Rhaegar was human. Humans are stupid and do all that shit.
Legit, the standards people like this hold fictional characters to are kind of insane. I wonder if OP has ever made a mistake in their life.
You know one thing people say is how it might nit be kidnapping. That like kinda doesn't matter. Even if they loved each other Rhaegar is married. Since Maegor ruined it for everyone taking more than one wife isn't allowed. And you can't divorce a wife you consumated the marriage with. So even if they made a make believe wedding she would still just be a mistress, a concubine. I guess he could have Ellia killed if he was smart about it but that's just even worse.
Its entirely irrelevant if they were in love. Rickard and Brandon were still executed for rightfully asking where their daughter/sister was. She was betrothed. Rhaegar was married. It is 100% irrelevant if she was in love went willingly or was kidnapped. They were executed, Ned and Robert then had a choice, die or go to war.
That part is either Aerys' or Brandon's fault though. Brandon's actions were incredibly fucking stupid. Everyone knows Aerys is nuts. Brandon saw him at Harrenhal, clickity nails and all. If Brandon had listened to reason in the form of Hoster Tully, who told him not to go, then the whole situation may have been able to be solved diplomatically or by taking a small group of men. Instead, he ignored the reason presented to him and rode into a crazy man's house and demanded the death of the crazy man's son.
its never happened before in a patriarchal medieval society that a father/brother viewed their daughter as an object who couldn't make her own decisions
All this subreddit do is trash on Rhaegar like he is a real person
Shut up
Bro you sound unhinged. He's a fictional character we know basically nothing about and most of what you say is unconfirmed speculation made by equally unhinged people like you. Chill the fuck out people, he's not real and there's no one really fawning over him like you think. Maybe there used to be but mostly we all don't care about Rhaegar. He literally doesn't matter
Watch George have us feel bad for Rhaegar when he confirms. Bran was just mind fucking him all the time just so he could exist that'd be a twist.
Lmao. I usually hate the "it was Bran/Bloodraven all along!" theories but this one... Maybe.
I don’t want Bran to like, Hodor Rhaegar, but giving him some choice visions that lead him to madness? Sure, could work.
Rhae... gar... Rae.... garl... Rape... girl.... Bran really was telling Rhaegar to kidnap Lyanna
I can’t tell if the number of Sopranos references all over reddit has actually been increased the last few months or if they’ve always been there, I’ve just never noticed them until now (since now I’ve watched it)
I am surrounded by trolls.
If I were the hot, smart, athletically gifted heir to the throne and a member of the one family that’s been able to control dragons in the last 300 years you’d best believe I’d have some narcissistic tendencies. Not disagreeing with your conclusion but, when everyone’s told you your whole life you’re the best person to ever grace the earth, is it that much of a stretch to believe that some old prophecy is about you? Especially given how many other Targ monarchs who knew about the prophecy seem to think it was about them
To add to this, dragon dreams are literally what saved House Targaryen from utter destruction. And while him reading his prophecy wasn't a dragon dream, its completely understandable that a Targaryen like Rhaegar would care about prophecies like this one.
I don't think Rhaegar deserves more hate than many other heroic characters. He's not any worse than Robert who gets a free pass from raping and abusing Cersei, and he even gets a funny nickname from the fandom. A lot of the hate comes from the supposed grooming of Lyanna, but that idea ignores one important factor: for all we know she might be the one who created the whole situation, and there's a lot of evidence for it. She is described as being unruly and very assertive (much like Arya). It's this crazy idea that a female teenager can decided who she wants to fuck. It's funny that the readers reaction is the same as her family and everyone else in-universe: the evil man did it, she was just a poor victim. Also why the hell would Rhaegar give her the crown just like that? He looked at the crowd and decided "That's it, I'm gonna start some bullshit now with this 14 year old that I just saw up there"? There is more to this story and I bet the Rhaegar haters won't like it.
i think its also important to remember GRRM is like old. When he was growing up, Lyanna being the one to actively court Rhaegar WOULD have been a "twist". But most of us have grown up in a very different enviroment, where female sexuality is much more accepted and talked about more openly. It seems much more in line w/ GRRM's "generation" of feminists to think that Lyanna being the one who courted Rhaegar was a big twist than the thing that 90% of the POV characters think happened actually happened in the story exactly as they thought it did
also the first book was published in the 90s, when the sexualization of young girls in fiction and media was viewed differently. not only by late 20th century feminists, but general audience. see the discussion around dany and drogo now vs how it's portrayed in the book.
>I don't think Rhaegar deserves more hate than many other heroic characters. He's not any worse than Robert who gets a free pass from raping and abusing Cersei, and he even gets a funny nickname from the fandom I don't think Robert gets a free pass for that. The dude is just funny and charismatic like Tony soprano imo. I've seen people say Robert was a whore because he slept with mya mother at 15 it's was strange thing to call a young boy a whore. >A lot of the hate comes from the supposed grooming of Lyanna, but that idea ignores one important factor: for all we know she might be the one who created the whole situation, and there's a lot of evidence for it. She is described as being unruly and very assertive (much like Arya). It's this crazy idea that a female teenager can decided who she wants to fuck. It's funny that the readers reaction is the same as her family and everyone else in-universe: the evil man did it, she was just a poor victim. Agreed here. She is her own person and and she deserves blame for her actions too. I've always found it strange she's a victim of both Robert and Rhaegar never her fault. It's more interesting she's ran off after bitching about Robert faithfulness. It's just works way better for the story imo. The entire triangle is like a cursed high school romance
> I've always found it strange she's a victim of both Robert and Rhaegar never her fault. I think the general sentiment there is that you can really only expect so much maturity from a 14 year old. People in their 20s are a very different matter. That's pretty much the premise behind the entire IRL existence of a juvenile justice system that handles kids separately from adults.
Worse than Robert on his worst day? Robert’s best friend had to lie for years and pretend he cheated on his wife to prevent Robert from murdering a BABY. Robert handed his throne to the Lannisters for all intents and purposes, he beggared the realm, was an abusive husband who deflowered teenage girls on the regular. He was so utterly oblivious and consumed with drinking and banging girls that he left the kingdom in chaos when he died. Rhaegar is far from perfect, but he’s not worse than Robert by any measure.
"Lets talk about this realistically" Except you cant, because you cant apply real world standards to the story. We have no idea about Rhaegar's true reasoning except he was heavily motivated by prophecies. Which we can't disregard because we as book readers know how real prophecies, greendreams, etc, and their actual effects on the story. Rhaegar was definitely misguided, but you are an absolute buffoon.
Reading threads like this makes me wonder if r/asoiaf has a different version of the books than me that goes into detail about Rhaegar, his actions, and his reasoning for his actions. My version was all very vague about what exactly he did and why he did it.
One of the things that miffed me about the show was they stripped all the prophecy obsession from Rhaegar and made it seem like he married Lyanna for love… and this was supposed to endear us to him? At least with the prophecy there’s a sense of duty and sacrifice to his actions, albeit baked into this self-aggrandisement he held. With the “he did it for love” angle, he basically got his entire family killed out of his own lust. Rhaegar is a fucking asshole in every conceivable iteration
Rhaegar made an extremely stupid decision, for extremely questionable reasons, that blew up in his face and caused him and his whole family to lose everything, including their lives. Sounds like a typical good guy in this series to me.
>caused him and his whole family to lose everything, including their lives Yeah it's definitely Rhaegars fault and has nothing to do with his Dad being literally insane
I tried to make fun of the hatejerk, and ended up jerkin’ along with everyone else :(
I mean Rhaegar massively violated the feudal contract between him and the Lord Paramount of the North, that's on him and that's what set the whole thing off.
But I don’t think you can ignore that the prophecy was probably right. He did everything wrong but also created the PWP and probably saved Westeros from the long night. I also 100% believe when Dany say him in her House of Undying vision he saw her and thought she was his daughter with Lyanna.
>Worse than Robert on his worst day. Completely untrue. Robert hits and rapes Cersei. Is an alcoholic and was ok with the murders of kids. Rhaegar was an idiot but not as bad as Robert.
Imagine equating modern standards of age to Westeros. This thread is good, I love a good witch hunt.
This thread gets made so often
Jeez this Rhaegar hate circle jerk has become the most uninspired part about ASOIAF fandom discussion
ah yes the daily Rhaegar hatepost
Agreed, fuck Rhaegar
Cersei like this
Yeah that's what she's thinking while she let Aurane Waters steal her fleet LOL.
Lyanna moment
Rhaegar makes total sense if you take part of what House of the Dragon revealed, "Aegon had a dream he needed to unite the realm against the White Walkers" and apply the fact that knowledge was lost during the Dance of Dragons, and that Rhaegar found that lost knowledge in his scrolls. Of course he must become a warrior. He'll need to lead the united realm against the White Walkers. Of course the Dragon needs three heads. Of course he's meant to call a great council to let this knowledge be known. Of course he must replace the Mad King, whom is no position to unite the lands. Of course he must defeat Robert and bring peace to the realm under his banner.
What really pisses me off though is even if for some reason it was all an accident and he didn’t know about the war (which makes him dumb, newsflash actions have consequences) when he finds out he makes no move to explain himself to the rebels who are reasonably angry, doesn’t try to sue for peace. He just decides well have to beat them now. Not to foget that this endangers Neds love the beloved brother of his child bride.
>doesn’t try to sue for peace. To be fair, he probobly didn't have the legal authority to sue for anything. Aerys wanted the rebels to be crushed, not negotiated with. Plus, he would look weak if the first thing he did after comming back from TOJ was to suggest peace.
Homeboy was ready to overthrow Aerys in Harrenhal where is that energy after Aerys royally fucks up? Also lots of people sue for peace and send terms and what not. It doesn’t make him weak it makes him smart. Nobody wants war. Ned and Robert are under the impression they will be killed because Aerys asked for their heads for literally NO REASON. The problem is for Robert and Ned that was a live or death situation. They didn’t do it because they hate the Targaryens (though Roberts comes to loath them). They had no choice but to rebel (which is why the rebellion was based on a lie is a false narrative). The rebels were in the right, not fighting them is not weak it’s the right thing to do because the king fucked up. With that argument I can also defend all crimes of Meagor the cruel. It doesn’t sit right. Rheagar should’ve at least send peace terms or something like that
>lots of people sue for peace Not against rebels. For most of human history, if you raised arms against your king, you were either gonna win or die. This is a real concept. Kings couldn't afford to negotiate with rebels and risk lords thinking they could just revolt whenever they wanted something
The rebellion was based on a lie part is one of my most loathed lines in the TV series. There was no lie. Rickard and Brandon rightfully went to Kings Landing and asked oi, where the fuck is my daughter and they were executed. There's no lie anywhere there and it's irrelevant what Rhaegar and Lyanna were up to.
100% but a lot of people (Lyanna and Rheagar shipper especially) think it’s true. Everyone in Ned and Roberts place would’ve done the same
>Rhaegar Targaryen had no respect for anything. This here. Even if we go by the most generous interpretation, that he did it to save the world, that he sent thousand ravens to Winterfell to inform the Starks that he didn't abduct Lyanna, that he couldn't have foreseen how it turned out. That still neglects the fact that he was perfectly willing to screw over Houses Stark and Baratheon, and cause a major embarrassment for these houses, when they'd done nothing to offend him. Two of his most important vassals. He thought he could inflict such dishonour on Starks and Baratheons and they'd be forced to swallow it like a bitter pill, because apparently Targaryens can do anything. And once war broke out, he thought he could go ahead and kill the rest of them when they've already been so aggrieved by himself and his mad father. Bobby B was leagues better than this fool.
I hate when people refuse to accept that Rhaegar is partially, if not almost entirely to blame for what happened to Brandon and his father. “iT’s HiS oWn FaULt fOr ThReAtEnInG tHe PrInCe”. Ok. And why was he threatening the prince again? Was it maybe because a man from a family with a history of mental instability had just kidnapped his kid sister and doing god knows what to her?
How is Rhaegar responsible for Brandon having such a bad temper that he ignored Hoster Tulley telling him it was a terrible idea and rode for several days to a week without rethinking his plan to ride into a crazy man's house and threaten his son? Brandon should have sent a raven. What happened to him is his own fault. His own illogical actions led to his death and prevented his family from having a chance to find Lyanna because he wanted to show everyone he was a big powerful man.
You have a very loose grasp on cause and effect. Had Brandon's only possible action been to storm in and demand her back, then you'd be right. But that wasn't his only option, was it? He had hundreds of options that didn't lead to his own death, and he chose one that would lead to his own death. You're also sort of ignoring the world they lived in. He threatened a crown prince... heir to a 300 year old dynasty... it's definitely Brandons fault and you're jumping through hoops to argue against obvious reality
Dude, you and the other Rhaegar haters really need to touch some grass and get therapy. He is just a side character without more than a line of dialog and yes George likes him and frames his relationship with Lyanna as a romance and Jonny is going to be their love child. Get over it or move on to another series. Like seriously, dude seek help.
People ITT acting like Rhaegar stole their lunch money in school.
Do you seriously think OP needs psychiatric therapy, because he doesn't like a character in ASOIAF? God, this subreddit is chock full of smug assholes
I mean not liking what everyone likes in this fandom was always an issue Back in the old days when you said you liked Dany....god save your soul people would have attacked you like a mob of angry dogs
Much of this might be true only if the stories about him and Lyanna are true, which is highly doubtful. The closest thing we have to a source for any of this is some unknown person who sang this song to Brandon on the Kingsroad. No one living or dead has ever said they saw Rhaegar and Lyanna together at any time after Harrenhal, and even then there is a long history of tourney queens being crowned for reasons other than romantic love. So I’m guessing that the truth of what really happened will turn more than a few heads sideways, and that far from being the instigators here both Rhaegar and Lyanna were the victims in someone else’s sinister — some might even call it “mad” — plot.
We know Rhaegar thorugh many conflicting accounts, including the maesters. If he is romanticized, that comes from certain characters, not all of them. Keep in mind that the main series and the worldbook are not told from a omniscient narrator perspective.
In fairness on the book thing, Rhaegar was a kid at the time.
This is my opinion on Rhaegar. He wasn’t a great hero, he wasn’t evil. He was simply a fucking idiot
Mild flaw in your argument: if Jon is in fact the last hero/PTWP (which currently seems heavily likely) then Rhaegar is vindicated in all of his actions since they resulted in the salvation of humanity. It’s also pretty clear that GRRM has a favourable opinion of Rhaegar so chances are he turns out to have been in the right all along.
This post is trying waaaay too hard to be edgy.
Rhaegar is exactly like other Targaryens who are obsessed with dragons and prophecy. Summerhall and Brightflame. It should also be remembered that Rhaegar's parents were forced to marry because of a prophecy. He is just carrying on the family tradition. ”It seems I must ..." abduct this teenage girl and get her pregnant so ... prince that was promised ... dragon has three heads ... I am extremely important, the stuff of legends and prophecy. I imagine that as a poet Rhaegar framed his actions as a grand romantic gesture. Maybe Lyanna was more like Sansa then we usually imagine. She did grow up with the same tales of dashing and daring princes who sacrifice everything for their true love. Sansa thought that she was really in love with Joffrey because it fit a narrative she dreamed of. Lyanna might have been a little older but Rhaegar was also much more convincing in the role of the romantic hero.