#in an unhappy marriage a woman can only run the fuck away whereas the man can lock his wife in the attic

[dreaminginsteadofsleeping42]

It’s so interesting to me that the big, like, ~reveal~ of both Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall concern one of the main love interests already being - surprise! - married, but they are such VASTLY different circumstances with totally different connotations and consequences. Just Bronte girlie thoughts.

[joannalannister]

Anonymous asked:

My problem with lyanna is not that she didn't want to marry Robert but her having feelings for rhaegar she talk to ned about wanting a faithful husband but doesn't seem to care about elia the fact that lyanna had a crush on him when he given her the flowers she saw how all the smiles died and am sure her father also had a talk with her after it happened its wrong for Robert but her rhaegar her been young still does not change anything so she would be happy been a mistress

Hey me again so about her being with rhaegar did she accept him to only sleep and be with him as she doesn't like sharing so she would leave elia to share a bed by herself how is alone 24 of course rhaegar is the problem but I am focusing on lyanna because I can't understand her and would she settle being a mistress and her child be a bastard or second best either way I can see her been that stupid not to know and when even she or rhaegar said about elia can't make either of them look good

Aegon the unworthy marriage his mistress even when he was still married but the marriage was illegal and no one saw as a real marriage so why when as saying if he did marry lyanna why would their marriage be valid I think if there was ever a marriage between them I feel lyanna would be the one to ask but rhaegar had to know that their marriage was not valid and in the end she was at best a mistress I feel like he might of lied to her to get her to sleep with her your thoughts

It is not my intent to offend. However, you asked for my thoughts, and I think there are a lot of assumptions being made here that are so completely at odds with my own that I cannot even address your concerns, because they are all so far away from everything I imagine. 

Without another book, we are all working off assumptions, of course, but my own assumptions run as follows: 

1) Lyanna was unhappy with the idea of an arranged marriage. Her objection was marriage. Any marriage. Something kind of like Eowyn:

“What do you fear, lady?" [Aragorn] asked. "A cage," [Éowyn] said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”

But I personally do not think Rhaegar was Lyanna’s Faramir. (I do not think Lyanna has a Faramir-character in her story, just as Cersei largely lacks a Lord MacBeth.) 

For this passage:

Ned let him prattle on. After a time, he quieted and they rode in silence. The streets of King's Landing were dark and deserted. The rain had driven everyone under their roofs. It beat down on Ned's head, warm as blood and relentless as old guilts. Fat drops of water ran down his face.

"Robert will never keep to one bed," Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm's End. "I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale." Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. "Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature."

I do not think this passage is about Lyanna or her desires. 

I think this passage is about Lyanna attempting to disillusion Young Ned, to try to explain to him that there isn’t going to be some wonderful happy Stark-Baratheon family after she is forced to wed Robert. 

Remember, Robert and Ned loved each other as brothers. Look at the passage up above; it’s about Ned’s “old guilts” and about how he “had assured [Lyanna] that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart.” Young!Ned was into it!! He was into the idea of this marriage! Robert, his brother, at last, in truth! 

Ned was blinded by his love for Robert. 

Don’t you see that double-meaning to that last line, hanging there at the end?  “Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.” It’s the line that haunts Ned’s memory, as well as our own. Love couldn’t change Robert’s nature. Love could not change Ned’s nature either. 

It was Ned’s nature to defend Robert so loyally, because Ned loved him. Ned could have said something to his father Rickard, could have said that Robert would shame Lyanna after they wed, could have maybe stopped this marriage that Lyanna objected to. 

But he didn’t. He didn’t speak out. Hence his “old guilts” beating down on him relentlessly. 

Would Lyanna find it nice to have a husband who doesn’t cheat on her? Probably, I don’t think that’s a stretch.

Would Lyanna find it even nicer not to have any husband at all? To “be a king's councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?” To do those great deeds Eowyn and Arya long for? To not be locked in a cage, until use and old age accept it? 

Fuck yeah. 

"Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. 'The wolf blood,' my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it”

2) I have not read a passage in the books that speaks definitively to me about Lyanna’s feelings for or about Rhaegar. Until I do so, I will continue to assume that Lyanna viewed Rhaegar as an escape rather than as a potential suitor. I believe Lyanna went with Rhaegar willingly, but I do not believe that she stayed with Rhaegar willingly. 

3) Personally, when I read “all the smiles died” -- well, I take “all” to mean “all,” and “all” includes Lyanna, so I assume that Lyanna was not happy with the way Rhaegar chose to honor her at the tourney, when he shamed his wife Elia. 

When Lyanna presumably ran away with Rhaegar, I do not think she was thinking about how her actions would affect Elia, because I don’t think Lyanna believed she was doing something that would negatively impact Elia. I think Lyanna believed the Crown Prince was using his position to simply help her escape her marriage to Robert. Perhaps he would let her be one of his knights! He had honored her for her bravery regarding Howland Reed, hadn’t he? She could ride with him and all the other young knights in the charming prince’s retinue! How exciting! Is this naive? Yes. But Lyanna was a child; children are naive by definition. If we are apportioning blame, I think Rhaegar takes the lion’s share for this whole situation.

4) With the return of winter after the False Spring, I believe Rhaegar believed that the apocalypse was imminent, and that he was doing What Must Be Done to save the world. I think that, most of the time, Rhaegar was not a terrible person, but I think that Rhaegar was going to do Whatever It Took to save the world, and I think Rhaegar’s definition of “Whatever It Took” included even things like rape. (Note that Westeros probably wouldn’t define it as rape, because a medieval woman’s consent, once given, is given forever (which is fuuuucked up). But we’re readers in the 21st century, so I’m going to call it rape when we have this relationship of dubious consent between a minor and an adult with infinite power over her.) 

5) I personally do not believe that Rhaegar and Lyanna got married in the books. I believe that Jon is a bastard, just not Ned’s bastard, and part of Jon’s story arc is coming to terms with his illegitimacy and realizing that it is not a stain or a sin or whatever, and that he is still capable of great heroism. GRRM has set up so many preconceived Westerosi notions about the horror of bastardy in the books that I think he is itching to undercut them with one of his major protagonists being both a bastard and a great hero. 

Furthermore, I do not believe that GRRM would undercut his heroine Daenerys like that. I believe that Daenerys must choose to relinquish the throne, not have it ripped out from under her by a cheap technicality of the patriarchy. 

(I am asking nicely: please do not comment or speak to me if you do not believe that Daenerys is a hero in the books. I simply do not have time for that in my life. So, I am asking nicely: please cut me out of your life and do not read my blog if you do not think of Daenerys as a hero in the books. )

I also don’t believe that Rhaegar thought he had time for a marriage. Again, impending apocalypse. 

And what faith were they married in, if it happened? Did they say the words at the God’s Eye, before a heart tree? Did Rhaegar convert? Did Rhaegar hire a septon? Why would Lyanna put any stock in a marriage by a septon? Did she convert? Why would a septon condone polygamy without fire breathing monsters to back it up? Was Rhaegar the kind of person to hold a knife to a septon’s throat and demand a marriage or else? I don’t think so! But how would this marriage even come about?? Where did Rhaegar even find time to fuss over these details? And if he couldn’t fuss over the details, what kind of wedding planner did he hire? What do you think Westerosi wedding planning agencies are like, and do you think the Lannisters used the same one, considering their targ aspirations???

I think Rhaegar was running to Dorne for all he was worth, to set up a fortress / base camp where he could allow Lyanna’s child (and Elia’s children when he could fetch them) to grow up to become the saviors of the world. 

Rhaegar just had to deal with a tiny rebellion and a slightly, every-so-slightly unhinged father and then everything would go according to plan! /sarcasm 

I don’t think Rhaegar was *deliberately* doing terrible things like abandoning his wife and children, I don’t think Rhaegar ever *meant* to hold Lyanna against her will in a tower in a land far from her home, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. 

I think there is a lesson in Rhaegar’s story, that Rhaegar was doing everything for the wrong reasons. Which is very Tragic. He was saving the world because a book told him he had to, and he was going to sacrifice various people to do it. (Which is wrong. Wrong. The only person you get to sacrifice is yourself.) 

Whereas Rhaegar’s son Jon ... I think Jon chooses to save the world because it’s something Jon feels in his soul as right and noble and honorable, something worthy of a son -- even an adopted son!! -- of Ned Stark. I think Jon chooses to save the world because he has lived in the world and is a part of it, in a way that Rhaegar never was, Rhaegar with his sad songs at ghostly Summerhall. 

I believe that agency is an important theme throughout the books, whether it’s Daenerys finding herself on the Dothraki Sea or Cersei taking back control of her own body or Tyrion saying fuck you to his father or Jon eventually choosing to save the world ... and I think Lyanna’s story is in keeping with this theme, that her story is about her trying to find her agency. 

The tragedy of her story is that she -- unwittingly, imo -- traded Robert’s cage for Rhaegar’s, and she died there. She became entangled in Rhaegar’s story, a story in which he chooses to jettison his frankly massive amount of agency -- the books and scrolls told him This All Must Happen! And It All Must Happen Right Now, With Utmost Urgency! -- and it’s terribly, terribly sad, and I feel sad for everyone involved. 

Now, I could be very wrong and you could be very right, anon, depending on what direction GRRM chooses to take his characters. But I cannot speculate on your specific concerns without new textual evidence indicating to me that your concerns are something to concern me. 

Again, it is truly not my desire to offend with this post. These are just my opinions, and I am very fond of both Rhaegar and Lyanna as characters, I find them both fascinating and I hope we learn more about them. I actually like the ship in a chivalric, Capital-R-Romantic way that’s basically divorced from my understanding of ASOIAF. (I really like Rhaegar x Elia too!)

If you would like to read more of my thoughts, I recommend you go through my lyanna stark tag, because there’s lots and lots of meta posts in there giving my thoughts in great detail, there’s fics I wrote explaining my ideas in fic rather than essay format, everything. So please go there.