#i HATE rhaegar

[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

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

Rhaegar Targaryen is easily one of GRRM’s best deconstructions of the genre and we don’t talk about it enough. He’s prince living in a world full of magic and wonder that has dwindled over time. His own family had a great monopoly on one of the most magical phenomena (dragons) to ever exist, but they lost this control over time and it was due to their own faults. But there’s an all encompassing hope that this magic, these dragons, will come back. They all live within the promise that it will all be back and with a huge bang. It’s all so romantic. Magical forces of ice and fire battling it out in a song.

Then there’s Rhaegar, a prince born for the sole purpose of being this song’s romantic hero. He already has his destiny mapped out and it will be a great one, greater than any other man who ever lived. It’s a song of ice and fire, and Rhaegar is its bard. You’d expect this to give him joy. Yet by all accounts, he was depressed as fuck. I think he’s unfairly earned the reputation of having an ego so big to think that he will be the hero….but that’s quite literally the point of his existence. He was born to be the hero. He paid the price at birth to be the hero. How can he revel and glory in this destiny when he has no say in it?

So it’s genuinely funny that when given the chance, Rhaegar immediately pivots to someone else taking on this burden. But how tragic for him that he cannot escape it too far. Because it will be none other than his own son who, under a “bleeding star”, is marked at conception for this great destiny without a say. More than his ego, Rhaegar is marked by the inability to escape this duty. His whole life is dedicated to fulfilling a duty he can never escape. He isn’t just a future king, prophecy dictates that the world’s survival is placed squarely on his shoulders. Even when he isn’t the hero, he’s now responsible for raising him…

…but then he makes one decision and it all comes crumbling like a pack of biscuits. He escapes this burden…but dies. And his successor dies too. And now the ones who will inherit his legacy are two people who never knew him. They never knew of his burdens, of this prophecy. But they too cannot escape its jaws. I think this does bring up some interesting questions about the nature of fate and destiny in the world of ice and fire. Can you really escape it? Rhaegar tried to, and paid the price for his defiance, but he never truly made it out because the burden instead jumped to the son (and sister) he never knew. Funny thing is that in a bizarre (and tragic, in its own way) twist of fate, this son was brought up entirely without the trappings of power that depressed Rhaegar. Rhaegar was a dazzling prince, Jon is a bastard. Rhaegar was marked by his great inheritance, Jon is marked by the lack thereof. Does fate say “well the first one got too depressed by having too much so let’s give the next one nothing?” Even Dany, who grows up a princess does not have the privileges that Rhaegar did. So how does upbringing craft a hero and the choices they make? Welll, GRRM had given us two versions of Rhaegar’s tragedy in Jon and Dany for us to see.

Rhaegar’s impact on the meta-narrative is honestly so massive. Like I’d put him right up there with Quentyn, Sansa, and Bran as one of the best genre deconstructions in the series and no one can tell me otherwise.

[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.

[fruitageoforanges]

apparently it’s eliarhaegar hours so:

the thing that drives me absolutely nuts about them is how they have so little in common. completely different frames of reference. dorne and king’s landing, the least repressive of the seven kingdoms and the epicentre of westerosi feudalism. a loving family, a family rotten to the core with incest and abuse. the political world, the world of prophecies and doom and dragon blood. they were doomed from the start. they were so, so doomed, they could barely begin to understand each other yet their lives are bound together, and that makes me insane. two completely different worlds colliding and, while they might’ve been able to coexist in each other’s orbit for a while, the collision and the shattering itself are slow, beautiful and inevitable.

[sare11aa11eras]

Just before

[Image Description: a full-color drawing, depicting the moment before Lyanna Stark is discovered to be the Knight of tihe Laughing Tree by Rhaegar Targaryen.

In the foreground, Lyanna Stark stands on a large grey stone at the edge of some water. She is barefoot and her shirt’s ties are undone so it falls open, revealing linen chest wrappings. Her shirt is white with red details and a silvery-grey lining. She also wears strips of light-colored fabric like her chest wrappings around her wrists. She wears dark grey stirrup pants. Her hair is in two braids, one still piled up on her head, the other falling down. Her hair ribbons are blue. Her bangs are plastered to her forehead. A necklace with a silver pendant with a wolf emblem on it is tucked into her chest wrappings. In her left hand, she holds her plain, wooden jousting lance straight up. Her helmet is propped between her left elbow and hip. She looks downward, towards the water in front of her, smiling, looking breathless and excited.

Also in the foreground is water, lots of grass, reeds, cattails, and more grey stones. A sapphire sits in the water. A pair of steel-toed leather boots is nearby. A little behind Lyanna, a crumpled grey dress is lying in the grass. A frog sits on the stump of a tree. There are a few purple flowers and red weirwood leaves scattered here and there.

In the midground is a massive weirwood tree, its foliage taking up much of the top half of the drawing. Lyanna’s shield, painted with the image of a laughing weirwood, is propped beneath its face. A raven perches on one of its boughs, in profile. A figure in profile wearing red and black, Rhaegar, is just coming around the tree, sword extended in front. The background is mostly blue, with an attempt to convey more trees and forest behind the subjects. / End ID.]

[eliaakgae]

Going through the Elia Martell x Rhaegar Targaryen tag on ao3 is like walking around the streets of Gotham unarmed

[ai-manre]

If Rhaegar has a million fans, then I'm one of them.If Rhaegar has one fan, then I'm THAT ONE. If Rhaegar has no fans, that means I'm dead. :)

[juju-or-anya]

A character I deeply hate in *Game of Thrones* and *A Song of Ice and Fire* isn’t Daenerys, nor Cersei, nor even Sansa (and that’s saying something, as she annoys me quite a bit). No, the character I truly despise is Robert Baratheon.

Robert embodies all the traits that make me think: "I hate men" or "Men disgust me." His entire personality revolves around being a womaniser, a drunk, an overweight man obsessed with the ghost of a dead woman. Lyanna Stark has been in her grave for nearly twenty years, and she still can’t rest in peace because of his sick fixation.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. While Robert wasn’t the mastermind of the Rebellion, he was certainly the one who fuelled it. He didn’t do it for the good of the realm or out of any sense of justice; he did it because he couldn’t accept that maybe Lyanna didn’t want to marry him. She preferred to be another man’s lover rather than his wife, and instead of accepting that, he unleashed a war. Lyanna, though raised as a noble lady of the North, had a will of iron and wouldn’t have allowed herself to be kidnapped without a fight (not that she really had a chance to avoid it—after all, she was a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl facing Rhaegar, a twenty-four-year-old trained warrior—but I think you get my point).

And let’s not even talk about his reaction to the murder and rape of Elia Martell and her children. Robert laughed cruelly when he heard that innocent children, some barely toddlers, had been brutally killed and celebrated that a helpless woman had been raped and murdered. He was happy about it.

Of course, I’m not idealising characters like Lyanna, Elia, or Rhaegar. We can’t sanctify or demonise them because we don’t truly know them. Everything we know about them is filtered through the perspectives of others, some positive, some negative. They’re “told” characters, like Lily and James Potter in Harry Potter, whose backstories depend entirely on others’ memories. But who do we actually know enough about? Robert Baratheon. We know he’s the kind of man who would order the murder of a pregnant girl across the sea—a girl who’d already lost her family and home because of his rebellion. Robert did all this, not because Aerys was a tyrant, but because he was obsessed with the memory of a woman who never loved him.

As for his supposed "love" for Lyanna, he never showed any intention of respecting her, being faithful to her, or actually loving her. He was only in love with the idea of having a beautiful, strong, wild wife he could mould and subdue to his will. Before he was even engaged to Lyanna, he’d already fathered a bastard daughter; and only a few weeks after her death, he had Gendry. So much for his “great” love for Lyanna—he was already fathering children with other women within weeks.

What’s worse is that half the story seems determined to paint him as "the good guy." Give me a break. The realm didn’t entirely collapse during his reign only because of Tywin Lannister’s ambition and the competence of the royal council, who worked tirelessly to maintain stability. None of this was thanks to Robert Baratheon, who barely managed his responsibilities while the realm barely kept itself afloat despite him.

For all these reasons and more, I deeply hate Robert Baratheon.

Edit: I'll stand corrected, because a comment corrected me and they's right. The real hero who kept King Landing stable enough for there to still be a King Landing was Jon Arryn, that man deserved a raise and the biggest statue in the world, as well as putting up with his idiot king.

Edit 2: Re-reading my post, I realized that I made a somewhat fatphobic comment when I talked about Robert's physique and if anyone feels hurt, I truly apologize. I will not delete it, because it will be evident and give me a reason to improve, we are in constant deconstruction and I do not want to delete something bad that I could have said and pretend it never happened, how will I learn if I do that?

[wayward-coffee-raccoon]

Rhaelya shippers always piss me off so much because no one in this entire fandom mischaracterizes Lyanna more than them. Like wtf do you mean a 14-15 yr old girl deciding to leave home to run away with a 20 yr old man is in any way "romantic" or "giving female characters agency". Its literally grooming.

Do yall really think Lyanna Stark, Knight of the Laughing tree would want to be locked away in a tower somewhere far away from the North , bearing the child of some man she barely knows just because she is "madly in love with him'?? Why would she stay even after hearing of the deaths of her father and brother??? Do you really think she would have wanted to die on the child bed at age 16 without any of her family???

Lyanna herself comments about love not being able to change someone's nature but she really changed entirely once she meet Rhaegar???

I need yall creeps to stay the fuck away from her

[melrosing]

that viral post about Jon finding mentors everywhere he goes except it’s Jaime looking for mentors and all of them are like you’re ugly you’re disgusting give me 500 dragons

[forestcat222]

So I've seen AU concepts where Rhaegar becomes king and stays married to Elua, or gets married to Lyanna, or gets married to Cersei, or (my favorite) him marrying all of them

Now I hate Rhaegar. I despise that man, and the idea of him marrying all these women who are too good for him doesn't exactly please me buuuut.....

Think of the kids, imagine you keep all the Canon kids (Aegon, Rhaenys, Jon, Joffrey, Myrcella, tommen) that means they're all siblings.

Joffrey has three older siblings fighting with him constantly. Tommen has two sweet older brothers and two sweet big sisters who will protect him. Jon and Joffrey are both the middle children. Myrcella has an awesome big sister who she can spend time with. Aegon is the oldest brother and gets to tease all his little brothers. Joffrey teases Jon about being shorter than him.

The sibling interaction potential give me life!!!

I think I might need to write an AU for this. I love the idea of this giant absurd dysfunctional family!

[la-pheacienne]

I will never understand people insisting that it was Jaime's fault Elia and the children died and that he didn't do his job. I don't understand why people cannot acknowledge that the multitude and diversity of factors working simultaneously and opposite to each other is precisely what creates the tragedy of the event(s), these factors being slowly morphed into a mechanism functining on its own accord, beyond any power individual decisions could have. Every single individual in this tragedy (the sack and the rebellion in general) had entirely different motivations and aspirations, and no individual had the full picture at any occasion whatsoever, and this is precisely because of the broader mechanism that was in motion that I mentioned above. And there lies the whole point, the concept of not knowing, not being able to know in advance. The idea of actions, choices, decisions having unexpected consequences that a character could not be able to imagine in advance. Things could have been different if at any point any of the individuals implicated in this event(s) knew the whole picture, or at worst, if they were more careful, more diligent, if they had made a better assessment of the situation at hand. I don't believe what happened was technically inevitable of course. It could have been avoided, which is something that amplifies the tragedy. Of course the individual decisions of any of the factors involved shaped the result. But we need to take into account all these parameters that were at play leading to each and every decision, prior to the decision itself, in order to avoid a bad faith reading of the text. We know everything that happened. The individuals did not know what would happen prior to making the decisions they made.

Rhaegar running away with Lyanna seems suspicious in general and there is definitely a lot of info missing there (which has been confirmed by grrm, meaning there was probably a reason they run away together - and i'm NOT talking about the braindead fanon theory of rhaegar collecting dragon heads like pokemons). Aside from that big hole of info we don't have that would give a solid context for this otherwise pretty inexplicable action, R and L could not have expected in advance that the events would play out in the way they did, they could not know in advance that someone (Baelish?) would spread the news of a literal kidnapping, they could not know in advance what Brandon would do, what Aerys would do, and so forth, and we don't even know when exactly they found out that all these things happened since they were isolated. They for sure could absolutely not know that Tywin, who didn't even take part in the rebellion, would eventually think it would be a great idea to randomnly order the rape and murder of Elia and the murder of the children. Nobody could ever imagine that in their right minds, yes, not-even-jaime-hello, which is precisely why this is an act of TREASON (and treason is an understatement), which is precisely why that act has such an impact and such an aura of horror and shock surrounding it, because of how unexpected and inconceivable it was, and also, how unneccessary it was, at a moment where the war was already won.

The power Rhaegar had in changing these events in any way shape or form was minimal to none, faced with the mad king that could go off the rails at any moment, the treason, the unprecedented cruelty of his enemies that were supposed to be allies, and more than that, the general mechanism already in motion leading to this tragic outcome.

Which leads me to Jaime. Jaime feels guilty for what happeend to Elia and her children, of course he does. He was there, in KL, he was sitting on the iron throne (i think that's when it happened) while the events took place and he didn't prevent them. I would also feel guilty if I were him. Who wouldn't? He was there. If he had thought this through, if he was more diligent, smarter, quicker idk, more perceptive maybe he would have figured this out sooner, maybe he would have done something, maybe he would have been able to save them. That's undoubtedly what he tells himself. Rhaegar would undoubtedly feel extreme guilt if he was alive after the sack of KL (which is a mere hypothesis since the sack of KL wouldn't have taken place had he been alive). Hell, even Ned feelts guilty for what happened to Elia and her children. That doesn't mean these people (i'm talking mainly about R and J) are actually responsible for what happened. That it is their fault that it happened. That they willingly wanted it to happen, or expected it to happen and didn't care, or let it happen in Jaime's case. Jaime's guilt stems from an error of judgement at worst, the fact that had he known every single parameter at play, had he imagined the exact motivations and intentions of a multitude of people and how far they were willing to go, had he expected what would happen in detail, he would have acted differently and maybe, maybe the result would have been different. That's not even certain, given, again, the multitude of factors at play that were beyond Jaime's power. But Jaime of course cannot help but think about the what if. The result could have been different had Jaime acted differently but Jaime acted according to the specific situation he had at hand, according to the specific problem that he had to face. He did what he thought was right in that precise moment. He didn't and couldn't possibly know what was going on outside from his sphere and if he did, we do not know for sure that he could have actually prevented the worst from happenning.

And I'm being exceptionally strict here by attributing an error of judgement to Jaime because I could have just said he was entirely innocent for what happened to Elia and the children, and it wouldn't be false. Again, error of judgement doesn't equal responsibility for what happened, it doesn't equal "moral flaw". An error of judgement does not give the reader a reason to morally judge a character. It is an entirely different thing.

I got this from Britannica :

I don't get how people can be so dense when reading anything related to the sack of KL and/or Robert's Rebellion in general. "Jaime didn't do his job", "Rhaegar led Elia and their children to their deaths" like, can you actually read? I was unnecessarily thorough here for something that is not all that complicated. It is pretty straightforward actually. It's sad that people do not get it. Like, I see BNFs being all deep and analytical about Jaime's moral struggles and dilemmas and overall tragedy and how he was in a situation that exceeded him and then they're like "rhaegar is the reason elia and the children died". From the other side I see people saying that Rhaegar couldn't have known what would happen and then they're like "Jaime didn't do his job!!!", guys. Guys. I'm begging you. I IMPLORE YOU : correcting a mischaracterization (Rhaegar was stupid/selfish for leaving """""all that responsibility""""" to Jaime) with another mischaracterization (Jaime "didn't do his job" because he's a moral coward) is not the way to go, it is done in bad faith, it erases the entire point of Robert's Rebellion along with a bunch of very important themes in asoiaf (the impossibility of choice, the fact that moral codes are actually a construct and don't always apply/sometimes contradict, and the feeling of powerlessness of an individual when faced with a monstrous mechanism, a system that is beyond their control).

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

I’m always a bit taken aback by these posts because I never see a ‘#f u Tywin’ or a ‘#Gregor and Lorch belong in hell’ in the tags, but these posts never fail to include a ‘#Rhaegar (insert vague threat here)’

This kind of stuff is so genuinely insane to me because we still do not know what Rhaegar was doing nor do we know what his plans were. We do not have his POV to know his thoughts, which means we know very little about him, but I do know that he did not kill Elia or his children. I do know that he did not order anyone to kill his family. I do know that he never sacked Kings Landing. I do know that he died before these murders and the sacking even took place. I do know that it was Aerys who prevented Elia and her children from fleeing Kings Landing. And I do know that he didn’t look at his children’s dead bodies and call them dragonspawn.

Rhaegar gets more heat than Elia and her children’s actual killers and their captor. In my opinion, that is insanity.

Because if people actually cared about Elia and her children, then there would be way more heat for Tywin and Aerys, for Gregor and Lorch. But instead, I see posts like this all the time in both Rhaegar’s tag and the main tags, and yet these posts never mention anything about the character who ordered the deaths of Elia and her children. I see nothing about the character who raped her and brutally killed her and her son. There is nothing about the character who dragged a little girl out from under her father’s bed and murdered her in a horrific manner. And the fact that there is heat for Rhaegar instead of Aerys and Robert tells me everything I need to know and leads to me not taking posts like this seriously.

cause wth

[lana-del-rhaena]

i can’t believe someone called rhaegar one of thee heroes of asoiaf after he kidnapped a child and started a civil war. he abandoned his wife and kids to a grisly fate over a prophecy. fuck him lmao

[fromtheseventhhell]

The majority of Rhaegar/Lyanna stans here are minding their own business but for certain people here (especially "martell stans") is not enough

They keep bashing these characters and they are acting as if they are "oppressed" by Rhaegar's stans

It's boring

This is sooooo true, and why I find Elia/Martell stans to be so annoying even though I love several Martell characters (same with house Stark stans tbh). They love throwing stones and then hiding their hands. They put their hate in the main tags and call Rhaegar a pedophile/rapist/racist/abuser/etc., Lyanna a spoiled brat/heartless temptress, and shit talk shippers cause they think the fanon they invented justifies it but the second a Rhaelya gives a fraction of that energy back, they play the victim. Cause you're right, it's not enough for them. At the root of it, they're forever going to be mad that Rhaegar, Lyanna, and their relationship are popular + important to the story. They swear they don't care but then they never shut up about them. Just another case of people wanting to be morally superior and getting pissy when things don't go their way.

[wokedragon]

I feel like Rhaegar’s character would be waaay less hated if it weren’t for his fans. They see him as this perfect Targaryen male who did all he could to save the world and was gravely misunderstood by his time and everyone who thinks differently is wrong. When in reality he kind of sucks and had the biggest known flop in Planetos. Really, his actions directly distabilized the realm and caused the death and rape of Elia Martell, the death of their children, Lyanna’s and a lot of other people’s 😬. But that’s not very heroic is it? That’s why it had to be a great love story between him and Lyanna and Elia had to be in on all of it because if Rhaegar isn’t the perfect misunderstood hero then he’s just some crazy Targaryen blinded by his trauma and self like that caused thousands of deaths like the rest of them. I feel like the actual Rhaegar, you know the one that doesn’t sound like he was directly pulled from a YA authors debut novel, the one who has a complex relationship with his parents, with the crown, with himself….the one who can’t make a mistake, the one who cannot look back or else… is more interesting. Grey characters are in general more interesting and that’s probably why grrm writes a lot of them. He would be less hated if his fans held him accountable for all the awful things he has done and caused but oh well…