#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

[knightsickness]

varys the spiders less subtle than he used to be

[jon-sedai]

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.

[mantisblvde]

🔸 "The Sun of Dorne" 🔸 Princess Elia Nymeros Martell

[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.

[lingulaca]

how it feels being an elia fan who doesn't hate lyanna in 2025

[saturnn-rings]

Everytime I remember how Bobby B hammered the shit out of Rhaegar's head I allow myself a big, happy and satisfyed smile. Never fails to bring me joy.

[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.]

[thhouseofblack]

when Winds of Winter is finally out and GRRM confirms that the stupid prophecy baby theory is stupid and that rhaegar-lyanna were silly and tragic and in love, I'll finally get my peace.

[eliaakgae]

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

[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

[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. :)

[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

[holliesocks]

Thinking about Rhaegar makes me so sad. I am just filled with sorrow and I have no where to put because the fandom chose to hate him for his family’s death instead of the actual monsters who killed his family ☹️

[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!

[thhouseofblack]

One of the more popular discourse surrounding Robert's Rebellion that is always used as a gotcha is "Rhaegar left his wife and children all alone but had Lyanna protected by the Kingsguard even though she didn't need it"

First of all, this statement is factually incorrect. King's Landing was protected by several thousand men, the remnants of the loyalist army, and any force that wished to enter the city would have had to do so through opening the gates.

[Eddard II, A Game of Thrones]

It is an entirely reasonable assumption that those who dwelled within the walls of King's Landing were safe.

Prior to The Sack of King's Landing, the City had only fallen once, and that too to dragons. When during the Dance of the Dragons, Queen Rhaenyra and Prince Daemon took the City from the Greens.

Do I think Elia Martell and her children would have been safer at Dragonstone? Absolutely 100%. But even within King's Landing anyone who thought about it for more than a second would have assumed that they were safe, with the protection of not just the loyalist army but the City Watch as well.

The fate that befell Elia and her children happened not just because Tywin Lannister's soldiers were let into the city and were sacking it, but because he specifically intended for it to happen, to secure Robert's reign and House Lannister's position in the new order.

Which is why when people talk about the Sack of King's Landing, and the death of Elia Martell, Rhaenys, and Aegon, I don't understand how they claim that Robert Baratheon would have let them live. The death of Rhaenys and Aegon Targaryen was necessary for Robert's position to be secured.

[Tyrion VI, A Storm of Swords]

Also why I don't get Rhaegar hate for this of all things. When Rhaegar Targaryen leaves King's Landing, he leaves Elia Martell and their children secured and safe, with soldiers guarding the city. No harm would have come to them had he returned back alive - it's a tragedy that has many people to blame: Tywin Lannister, Gregor Clegane, Amory Lorch, Robert Baratheon etc. Ignoring them all and blaming Rhaegar is to just simply satisfy your own desires to be hateful towards a character you dislike.

In comparision, Lyanna Stark was in a watchtower in the Dornish Marches, on the border of the Stormlands. Had her location been revealed, all she had for her and her unborn child's protection were 3 knights, regardless of whether they were of the Kingsguard or not, because as we know, all 3 of them died in a battle when faced with just 7 others (fortunately Ned Stark, and his six companions).

Had it been vassal lords of the Stormlands who caught news of the Tower of Joy, or even the Dornish, Lyanna and Jon would have had a far worse outcome, it isn't that she was all cozy and comfortable with naught a fear in mind there, she is in a great deal of danger should things have gone south, and it's silly to even pretend and claim otherwise.