#anti rhaegar stans

[rise-my-angel]

If I had a nickle for everytime fandom glorified some emo loser shitbag I wouldn't be poor anymore.

Everyone claims people loved Rhaegar but like no one can name a single friend he had that wasn't men who WORKED for him. He had no friends, he just played sad songs on his harp singing that no one wants to listen to his obsessive prophecy rants anymore.

He got crushed to death by a war hammer. The way Rhaegar died was cooler then he was as a living person.

Meanwhile Ned Stark is out here calling the King fat to his face, strangling a dude in the street in broad daylight for insinuating a joke about his wife, arguing with the Queen seconds after he woke up from a feverish sleep, and letting his kids all keep Wolf pups as pets that he KNOWS will grow to be the size of a fucking car.

Put up anything Rhaegar did and I'll match it with anything Ned Stark did but that he did it cooler more unhinged and didn't have to be a creep while doing it.

[swee26oy]

Lyanna stans have a big mouth for criticizing Elia/Rhaegar ship and calling it unrealistic (when they were literally married in the books and had 2 kids). But they are the same people who ship Lyanna/Jaime, Lyanna/Arthur, and many others. Mind you, there is not a single reference in the books to these relationships. But you know who does. Elia Martell has a correlation with these men and it is a Canon according to the books and she had several suitors before she married Rhaegar. So once again Lyanna stans are jealous because their bitch doesn't have that by the way they call her Princess Lyanna and there is no way she can be a princess. It's completely unrealistic. Even if she married Rhaegar, the most she would get is a noble lady. Elia Martell is already a princess because that's her birth title, she didn't get it from Rhaegar. Elia is her own person.

(Also just because elia stans posted fan art of elia with rhaegar doesn't mean they like rhaegar. It's too big for your little mind to comprehend).

[whateverthought]

It's tragic love. You just don't WANT not CAN'T like Rhaegar x Lyanna. You think life is white and black and that as long as Elia is not loved by Rhaegar you should find fault in their love.

Whats tragic about it? What did Rhaegar see in this little girl? The only nice thing he ever does for her is naming her "Love and Beauty" at a tourney. Which, depending on Lyanna's situation could have actually hurt her? If Robert Baratheon had been a jealous, abusive man, seeing another man show interest in her could have caused her problems. Hell, if her father was an abusive man, he could have called her a whore and punished her for just the Thought that she was with the Prince, who she never met.

Other than that? What else is there? Stealing her away in the night? Something that started a War and put her siblings in harm's way? He took her from her Horrible Betrothement and then what? Put her in a tower?

We do know Rhaegar was obsessed with his Family History and the Prophecy especially. We do know Elia couldn't give him anymore children, just one short. We do know he knew about the Ice and Fire part and its 'importance'. We also know Lyanna hated that Robert, her fiance/betrothed, slept around even though they were 'together'. And we know Lyanna had a strong moral compass, or belief in Right and Wrong.

Saying you KNOW what I'm feeling is crazy. It's not my Black and White View that's causing me problems, its the established characterization that I'm hung up on.

I don't care if Rhaegar Loved Elia, personally I don't have enough on these characters to care.

[crimsonbastard]

The more I dwell in the ASOIAF fandom, the more I realise something.

I'm becoming Targaryenphobic.

The Targaryens need to go. All the purebred Inbred, Batshit Crazy, Aryan Coded shits need to go. All of them!

I love the Targ-towers (can talk about Aegon later) but again, no exceptions (I guess except Helaena)

Jon, please resurrect soon and Put Daenerys down. If Young Griff turns out to be Batshit like his dad, aka Ratgar Targaryen then he, unfortunately, needs to go down too.

[cowboysanddragons23]

Contrary what the Rhaegar and Lyanna shippers like to tell everyone, Rhaegar and Lyanna wouldn't have been good parents to Jon:

-Rhaegar is first and foremost, a man driven by prophecy, for the obsessive desire of proving that the suffering his family went through was for something. He already had his Rhaenys and Aegon, but needed a Visenya. So he manipulated Lyanna into going with him and impregnated her. So when he finds out his "Visenya" was a son, Rhaegar would have given up on Jon since birth because he wasn't the Visenya he wanted for his prophecy.

-Lyanna is a woman who was too young to be a parent and completely disinterested in lady-like pursuits (and amongst those lady-like pursuits is motherhood), so she would have left Jon with the servants and go riding and swordfighting, seeing Jon as the reminder of the worst mistake she made in her life. And on top of that, she would despise her life in the South.

-Sound familiar this situation? It's essentially Viserys II and Larra Rogare all over again, with one of the parties being too young to be a parent (Lyanna and Viserys II) and the other party being an absentee (Rhaegar and Larra Rogare). Although you can make also a parallel with Lyanna and Larra too, mainly that both of them disliked the South.

[rmelster]

Rhaegar Targaryen had a thing for making bold, witty and lively women into his disposable broodmares, prove me wrong.

[catofoldstones]

It is explicitly stated that Rhaegar first thought himself to be the the prince that was promised, then Dany had a vision in which Rhaegar said his son Aegon was the prince that was promised and that a dragon had to have three heads and there must be one more. He had two children with Elia: Aegon and Rhaenys. The original dragon trio were Aegon, Rhaenys and Visenya. What's not clicking? Do these people even read? He thought he was the savior, then shifted to his son, then either 1) he wanted another sister for Aegon and went for Lyanna since Elia couldn't have more kids 2) thought the prince that was promised had to have both Stark and Targaryen ancestory (a song of ice and fire).

No, no they don’t read anon, because then how would they come up with ideas such as “there was no prophecy, it’s a fanon interpretation” and declare it with their whole chest? The same prophecy that is connected to one of the biggest plots, that is yet to be unveiled, and has had people in a frenzy for the past one and a half decades. A prophecy that was explicitly mentioned in affc

“Sam, we tremble on the cusp of half-remembered prophecies, of wonders and terrors that no man now living could hope to comprehend …”

Samwell IV, A Feast For Crows

“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.”

Samwell V, A Feast For Crows

So what’s not clicking?

Can I also talk about how entitled and proud Rhaegar is to think the prophecy was about him and then definitely his son. Bro couldn’t fight to save his life but knew he was tptwp, and then went ahead and toppled a continent because of his ego. He ruined Elia and Lyanna’s lives, plunged the realm into a civil war, got his own house destroyed, KILLED HIS OWN CHILDREN and for what? To satisfy his own arrogance? For self-adulation and admiration? There is literally no greater cause here. How do you read a prophecy of all things, and think yup, this is 100% about me, I’m the chosen one, the special prince, who was talked about for centuries, the prophet, the one who’ll save lesser beings than myself from their doom, yup that’s me. Targ arrogance goes hard. Jfc.

There’s a lot of speculation about why Rhaeghar went after Lyanna. The whole “and his will be a song of ice and fire” does sort of fit as a reason Rhaegar would give himself for going after Lyanna, apart from the fact that he just found a gullible young girl at the tourney who had also done something that would bring her a lot of opprobrium (knight of the laughing tree) and saw his opportunity. Lyanna wanted a life of freedom, and Rhaegar promised it to her, and then took away everything from her, her family, her agency, and in the end her life, locked away in a tower. He did that because he could do that, and then give any reason for it because he’s the last heir to the Targaryen crown (at that time). But the other shoe did drop, there were consequences to his egregious actions, and the cocksure idiot hadn’t prepared for that.

Though as a reader, I would argue that the “ice” counterpart is not House Stark but rather the white walkers. The “ice” and “fire” analogues, for me, are the others and stannis and his red witch and the rhollor worshipers and, later, the targaryens with their dragons. I don’t think grrm (4:55) was referring to the starks as the ice because there are other northern houses as well, and would they be counted as the ice too? Anyway, it could be said that Rhaegar did either want another daughter (visenya) for the three heads of the dragon or had completely abandoned that idea by the time he met Lyanna, and decided that their son would be tptwp.

Either way, fuck rhaegar for all of eternity and then some.

[forgotten-fossilised]

oh thank god for The Prophecy! without it I would've thought Rhaenys (and later on other tb dragonriders) burning countless people was bad. but it's not just for the crown, it's actually for the good of the realm! why?? because hundred years ago the colonizer who had also burned and killed people had that dream, so now Rhaenyra has the divine right to do the same (but hmm why her and not any other Targ? oh right bc her daddy said so without any further explanation. makes sense.)

so, the moral of the story is: war is bad, except when its fought by a Targaryen motivated by some bs prophecy, got it. the other is - team green propaganda bad, team black propaganda good

[rise-my-angel]

Okay but what if Jon is actually a really good singer, but he has no idea because the one time he tried as a child, Ned nearly had a heart attack over it, and had to gaslight the poor boy into thinking he was terrible and shouldn't try ever again. Now Jon just has zero inclination to sing ever, but on the off chance he ever does, god help him depending on if it's in front of someone who knew Rhaegar once upon a time.

[swee26oy]

I was reading fanfic about Elia Martell, Robert's Rebellion and all that. And I discovered something really funny. lyanna stans are so desperate that they try to steal everything elia has. Her title as a princess she was born with, her kindness, her love for children and the thing that made me laugh so hard even her friendships with the characters they tie it all to lyanna they are so obsessed that they make aegon and rhaenys love lyanna and hate their real mother. Also elia is like a whore in these stories. The most embarrassing thing is the authors who claim to love elia but are willing to have rhaegar be in a relationship with every female in asoiaf except elia and this follows them stealing everything about elia and putting her in that character or making their own character based on elia as well.

All of this makes me think how perfect Elia is.

[kass-of-the-midlands]

We gloss over Elia being bedridden for six months, half a year after birthing Rhaenys far, far too easily imo. Rhaegar was actually fucking diabolical for having sex with her again, let alone Elia giving birth just a year after this

[katy-89]

asoiaf fandom when they talk about Daenerys and Rhaegar

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

Why do you think the tides have slightly turned from "Elia deserves better than Rhaegar" to shipping her and Rhaegar together? Like what is the psychology behind these people because I've seen some of them like/reblog anti Rhaegar posts while also shipping Rhaegar x Elia at the same time.

hey anon! my thoughts are a bit messy, but i’ve done my best to explain them coherently :)

so, rhaegar was the best man anyone could have when elia was alive, and most people want the best for their favs. he was considered the most handsome, didn’t have a bad personality, and he was crown prince—meaning elia was almost queen, which is often seen as the greatest role a woman can have. the narrative also treats rhaegar as a beautiful, tragic, haunting figure, and elia actually had this very aesthetically pleasing man all to herself at one point! she was married to him, had children with him, and her life was so close to perfect! but rhaegar just had to go and ruin it. 😠

for many elia stans, if rhaegar hadn’t fallen in love with another woman (they want him to have been a completely different character), then everything would’ve been perfect, and elia would’ve had the best, most desirable life. however, that’s not what happened—elia met a very tragic end, and as a result, these stans feel double the bitterness. because of this bitterness, they blame rhaegar for everything (even though it’s not logical to do so), but he’s just too ‘perfect’ to let go of. so, for years these stans have made rhaegar revolve around elia, filling his tag with posts about her out of bitterness. so, i do believe that this obsession with rhaegar x elia has always been there, but i think it’s become a more favorable stance on the elia stan side of the fandom because of a mix of reasons.

plus, rhaegar is one of the few canon relationships we know elia had, since she’s not much of a character. because of this, and the fact that most people don’t like to stray too far from canon, most elia stans are forced to focus on rhaegar, which has created an echo chamber. basically, if a sentiment about elia and rhaegar’s relationship becomes popular, then the whole elia stan side of the fandom will likely regurgitate the sentiment. (also, this desire to stick close to canon is likely why the elia x arthur ship was so popular. while it’s a total crack ship, it had good aesthetics, and since elia and arthur at least knew each other, it allowed the stans to create their perfect fanfiction whilst sticking it to rhaegar. but remember, elia was actually married to rhaegar and had children with him, so while arthur is cool, rhaegar was always ‘top dog,’ meaning arthur would never be able to match up to rhaegar to most elia stans. also, the arthur x elia crack ship is likely her second most popular ship, which just shows how little elia stans have to work with, so they’re always forced to eventually return back to rhaegar for a lot of things.)

however, even if the elia x rhaegar ship gains more popularity, these stans will never stop hating rhaegar because he wasn’t ‘perfect’—and he wasn’t perfect because he didn’t love elia. plus, rhaegar loving another woman and supposedly kidnapping her is what began the war that led to elia’s tragic death. that’s bitterness times 1000. and while i don’t actually blame rhaegar for the war, i do think that this is how an elia stan sees it. i also don’t view rhaegar’s complex relationship with elia as a bad thing—it’s actually a very realistic take on an arranged marriage between two decent people. but most elia stans will never be able to get over the fact that they almost had everything, which is why many have it out for lyanna, as they consider her a thief who ruined their ‘perfection.’

tbh, that might be why so many elia stans are so obsessed with the idea that rhaegar only got with lyanna because of the prophecy—they don’t want to believe that rhaegar actually loved a different woman and not their perfect self insert elia. that’s a bit mean of me… but i don’t know what else one would call the ‘elia’ elia stans have created.

now that i’ve laid all those thoughts out, i’ll try to explain why the tides seem to be turning… i think it may have something to do with the ‘targaryens are all evil and bad’ sentiment losing popularity. i think this shift has occurred due to a mix of factors, such as years of fandom fights and fandom cycles leading to the targs being more liked now than before. it helps that canon doesn’t actually condemn the targs/favors them quite a bit, and the influx of new targ fans from HOTD has also contributed. this combination of reasons seems to have shifted the way the mainstream fandom discusses all the targaryen characters, including rhaegar. so, with this shift, it’s only natural that some elia stans/elia x rhaegar shippers—who’ve always been there—are using this opportunity to push their agenda. while these stans still hate rhaegar and see him as the bad guy, they just can’t let go of him. and as the mainstream fandom moves away from the anti targaryen sentiment, these smaller corners of the fandom, which tend to be echo chambers, are also affected, which has therefore led to a rise in rhaegar x elia shippers and the ‘shifting tide’ that you’ve also noticed.

[katerina-q]

If you ever feel delusional and stupid, just remember that asoiaf fans are using this FANFICTION quote for their anti Rhaegar and Lyanna agenda and they also think this bullshit is from the books.

I promise you, in the CANON BOOKS, Oberyn never spoke that way about Rhaegar and never slutshamed Lyanna :)

[blissfulphilospher]

if they adapt Robert's Rebellion

I don't want to give anyone ideas but if they ever make Robert Rebellion's tv or movie version then Robert Baratheon is going to be portrayed as the worst man ever who raped woman here and there and probably assaulted Lyanna.

And that's why she ran away with the tragic melancholic godly prince who was so noble and good but trapped in a marriage with either an unstable chronically ill brown woman or a scheming ambitious brown woman who doesn't love him at all and maybe cheats on him.

Tragic King Aerys who loves his family and wants to burn the whole city because he has a good cause!! Sacrifices will wake dragons! Dragons eggs could have hatched before Dany! Aerys' was a genius. And yes Rhaella supported him and Rhaegar with everything.

It was House Targaryen against the world.

Also, Tywin Lannister was best buddy of Aerys. He sent the Mountain and Amory Lorch to protect the royal family! Those noble knights who accidentally killed the little girl maybe because he couldn't identify whether the Princess was Targaryen or not? Maybe she wasn't.

The Mountain too had similar accidents because Aegon isn't the ptwp or he doesn't exist at all. Problem solved! Rhaegar had no son! This is true! Jon is his only son!!

And let's not forget how hard it was for the Mountain and other guy to climb the building, their struggle to get in Maegor's Holdfast!! They will show us that, than the Princess who is trapped helplessly in a tower with a drawbridge, drawn up and no way to escape with her children.

But no problem that those children died, they were nothing special no one mourns them or their mother. They deserved to be killed and forgotten. House Martell supports Targaryens! They will rise for Jon if they knew! True love of the prince Rhaegar already gave him the only son. Aegon 6th!!

And see a noble honourable Stark lord will raise because 'song ice and fire!' 'prophecy baby' and not because he is the last piece of his sister and that's what any uncle will do.

And… Jon Arryn? Who is Jon Arryn? Why does he want to rebel? He has no reason! (His heir was also murdered idk why people forget that!)

And yes the war was started by Littlefinger if you didn't know before he hyped up Brandon to march to KL. 😄

[kidcaroline]

Joffrey never loved Sansa and he didn't die with her name on his lips, unlike Rhaegar

-Lyanna died with Rhaegar's roses in her hand, something that Sansa would never do with Joffrey's roses or gifts. Lyanna wasn't an hostage, unlike Sansa

-Rhaegar is not portrayed as a monster in the books, unlike Joffrey. It doesn't matter how much you'all are trying to change canon to fit your nonsensical narrative

-Sansa is not a parallel to Lyanna, get over it

-If you want a good parallel with Rhaegar and Lyanna, read Jon and Ygritte's chapters and Bael the Bard tale

-If you want to understand Rhaegar and Lyanna better as characters, read Daenerys and Arya's chapters

Sansa stans, stop talking about Rhaegar and Lyanna, you don't know shit about these two and Grrm will never acknowledge your bullshit