#rhaegar's folly

[daenerystargaryen06]

"How beautiful, the queen tried to tell herself, but inside her was some foolish little girl who could not help but look about for Daario. If he loved you, he would come and carry you off at swordpoint, as Rhaegar carried off his northern girl, the girl in her insisted, but the queen knew that was folly..." -A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

"I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb." -A Storm of Swords -Jon XII

Daenerys wanting Daario to carry her off at sword point, and Jon thinking of stealing Val for her love. Two parallels of one girl wanting to be stolen, and one boy wanting to steal someone. Both for love.

"None of them had ever seen a direwolf before, he realized, and Ghost was twice as large as the common wolves that prowled their southron greenwoods. As he walked toward the armory, Jon chanced to look up and saw Val standing in her tower window. I'm sorry, he thought. I'm not the man to steal you out of there." -A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

"Even if her captain was mad enough to attempt it, the Brazen Beasts would cut him down before he got within a hundred yards of her." -A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

Jon is sorry he can't steal away Val, and Daenerys reflects on the fact that even if Daario did attempt to carry her off at sword point, he'd be cut down.

Both Jon and Daenerys have a sense of romanticism in their POV's. Both are hopeless romantics (perhaps Daenerys more so than Jon in a sense). Both want love, despite denying it deep down. Jon because he's a man of the Night's Watch and a bastard. Daenerys because she is a Queen over her people and accepts duty over giving in to "girlish" thoughts.

Both had found love within confinement. Jon having fallen for Ygritte while pretending to be on the Freefolk's side. Daenerys having found a twisted love in Drogo after being sold to him as a bridal slave. Both were coerced into sexual relations with Ygritte and Drogo. Both had to watch Ygritte and Drogo die (and Dany killed Drogo out of mercy).

"He found Ygritte sprawled across a patch of old snow beneath the Lord Commander's Tower, with an arrow between her breasts. The ice crystals had settled over her face, and in the moonlight it looked as though she wore a glittering silver mask [...] "Oh." Ygritte cupped his cheek with her hand. "You know nothing, Jon Snow," she sighed, dying. -A Storm of Swords - Jon VII

"And when the bleak dawn broke over an empty horizon, Dany knew that he was truly lost to her. “When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east,” she said sadly. “When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When my womb quickens again, and I bear a living child. Then you will return, my sun-and-stars, and not before.” Never, the darkness cried, never never never. Inside the tent Dany found a cushion, soft silk stuffed with feathers. She clutched it to her breasts as she walked back out to Drogo, to her sun-and-stars. If I look back I am lost. It hurt even to walk, and she wanted to sleep, to sleep and not to dream. She knelt, kissed Drogo on the lips, and pressed the cushion down across his face." -A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

Both Jon and Daenerys have also found interest again after the deaths of Ygritte and Drogo. Jon wants Val, and Daenerys sleeps with Daario and may perhaps love him, but doubts over her relations with Daario. Both focus on their duties over giving in to what they really want. Daenerys even marries again for peace over giving in to what she really wants.

Both Jon and Daenerys think of having children, but push away the ideal. Jon due to being a member of the Night's Watch and a bastard. Daenerys due to thinking she is barren/cursed by Mirri Maz Duur and can never again have a child born from her.

Jon reflects that if he ever had a son, he'd name him Robb after his brother. Daenerys when pregnant with Drogo's child names her son Rhaego after her brother.

Jon is the secret son of Rhaegar and Lyanna. Lyanna is associated with blue winter roses:

"He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he had walked a thousand times before. The Kings of Winter watched him pass with eyes of ice, and the direwolves at their feet turned their great stone heads and snarled. Last of all, he came to the tomb where his father slept, with Brandon and Lyanna beside him. "Promise me, Ned," Lyanna's statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood." -A Game of Thrones - Eddard XIII

"Robert had been jesting with Jon and old Lord Hunter as the prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the final tilt to claim the champion's crown. Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost." -A Game of Thrones - Eddard XV

When Daenerys has visions in the House of the Undying, she sees the Wall:

"A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . ." -A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

Jon is the 'blue flower' she sees growing from the wall of ice, filling the air with 'sweetness'. Jon is Lyanna's son. Both carry blue flower representation.

Jon also wants to know everything there is about his mother; who she was, if she loved him, what sort of person she was. Just alike to how Daenerys wants to learn and know everything she can about Rhaegar, as she also idolizes him in a sense. Both have thoughts about these people. Jon constantly thinks about his mother (Lyanna even if he does not know yet who she is); Daenerys often thinks of Rhaegar (despite never knowing him). Both think of these people despite them already being gone from the world, and both only wish they could have known who they truly were as people and can only guess how Lyanna and Rhaegar would've thought or acted.

Jon thinks of having dragons at the Wall:

"We should have twenty trebuchets, not two, and they should be mounted on sledges and turntables so we could move them. It was a futile thought. He might as well wish for another thousand men, and maybe a dragon or three." -A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

When Jon dies, Daenerys hears a wolf howling in the distance:

"Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry. As the moon rose above the grasslands, Dany slipped at last into a restless sleep." -A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X

Both have an association/thought relating to one another's animal sigil/companion. Jon thinks of wishing for three dragons (Daenerys' house sigil and her dragon children). Daenerys hears a wolf howling when Jon dies, making her feel sad and lonely (Jon's house sigil through Lyanna/Ned and his direwolf Ghost).

Both Jon and Daenerys dream of home. Daenerys with the house with the red door and the lemon tree. Jon with Winterfell.

Both are estranged from their families (Jon being at the Wall. Daenerys being in Essos and the last of her family having died).

Both have lost their brothers in different means. Both have had their mothers die from childbirth and never got to meet them. Both of their fathers (Rhaegar and Aerys) died during the Rebellion.

Both had arcs of leadership and rule, and struggle with their decisions and making hard choices. Jon winds up killed due to his choices at the end of ADWD, and Daenerys becomes stranded in the Dothraki Sea due to her choice of saving Drogon (and her people from Drogon) from the fighting pit and escaping on dragonback.

While Daenerys thinks of taking the IT as a duty due to being the last of her family and Viserys' last living heir, Jon admits to wanting to become Lord of Winterfell but turning the opportunity away.

[martellspear]

Hey! I love your blog and your dedication to Elia Martell as a character. I have read your fics on ao3 and absolutely loved them. And I was wondering if you had any recs for us Elia enjoyers out there? Canon-compliant or AU it doesn't matter I just want to consume Elia content like there is no tomorrow <3

hi, anon!! thank you for your sweet words, they mean a lot and i'm so happy that you enjoyed my fics 💗. i haven't read many fics - studying is getting in my way -. but, i'll share a list of my favorites ones and my bookmarks.

* warning: it's LONG

First of all, I'd recommend checking Failed_to_Deanon, she's insanely talented and has a lott of elia-centric works

A Farewell by Ramzes - one shot

In the morning of Rhaegar's departure for the Trident, Elia Targaryen makes a surprising discovery about her husband and their marriage.

The Sun Rises Again by amn_elfire - fanfic - 10/?

After her death, the Seven give Elia the task of saving her people from Rhaegar and Lyanna's folly with the opportunity to avenge her children by sending her back in time to before her betrothal with Rhaegar was ever arranged. Or With her prior memories still vivid in her mind, Elia sets out to prevent the events that led to the deaths of thousands while never forgetting who was at fault for the deaths of her children. But she isn't the only one.

All Too Well by starboundheart - fanfic - modern!au - 1/?

Five year after a fairly clean divorce, Rhaegar decides its time for a family vacation - to Summerhall. Under the guise of his children needing to know each other. But as always, the man has ulterior motives. Or does he?

Elia's House of Ghosts! by biohazard603 - fanfic - 3/?

i can't wait to read this one!!

Elia buys her first house! She has always been drawn to that old abandoned tower, the Tower of Joy, and now it was finally hers! Too bad she doesn't know or remember the ghosts that were there first. or Modern AU where Elia buys a haunted house.

clear the board, reset the pieces by lostchildofthenewworld - fanfic - 9/9

All they ever wanted was the opportunity to go back and do it right, to allow themselves to be happy.

The wolf burned like the heat of the sun for her alone by Redroses123 - fanfic - 10/?

Rhaegar has to get rid of his wife so that he can be with the woman he loves. He does this in mad Targaryen fashion. Elia finds herself hitched for life to the second son of Rickard Stark. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise she doesn't understand yet. How will this change fates design. NOT FOR RHAEGAR FANS

Repercussions of the First Sin by Sunspear22 - fanfic - 27/?

It started with a blue crown...

The Bereaved Dunes by aurasjournal - one shot

this one is so beautiful

In the Bereaved Dunes, where shadows weep, A tale of love and sorrow, bound to keep. Elia, my sun, in your memory I tread, Through sands of despair, where tears are shed. I should've taken you far away, my dear, To Dorne's warm embrace, where skies are clear. But fate had other plans, a cruel twist of hand, In the Bereaved Dunes, where sorrows expand.

What if you go, what if you stay by Biggestscarinyourback - fanfic - 4/4

She listens to the eyes of violet and sits down. Her husband's eyes are almost this colour too, she reflects again. But not half as bright, certainly no laughter in them. His are darker, cold as they are soft, a confusing contrast that gives her no reprieve. They should have been burning, The Last Dragon they had called him and yet he lacks any and all fire in those eyes, as far as she has seen. The blood of the dragon runs hot, they had declared, she has it too, running in her veins, burning. A bittersweet look into Princess Elia Martell's life amongst dragons and lions, from the day of her wedding to her tragic demise.

Lazarus in the Sun by Anonymous - fanfic - 3/?

The Princess of Dorne is a marked woman. With her husband victorious at the Trident yet somehow still missing, now more than ever does Elia Martell find herself stuck between a rock and a hard place: to stay in King’s Landing with herself and her two children at the hands of a madman, or to take the jump and escape? A spur of the moment decision turns into a years-long deception as Dorne wrenches her way out of the Seven Kingdoms on the back of a lie. And though peace is finally taking root once more in this corner of the world, no sooner do the gods laugh when an unexpected figure from the past comes back and unsteadies the ground beneath them all.

Hourglass by spearsndragons - fanfic - 11/?

Elia dies and awakes on the day of her wedding. Armed with the memories of her previous life, she is determined not to let them come to pass. She will make the Seven Kingdoms regret they ever underestimated her. In another part of the Red Keep, the Gods of Old Valyria send Rhaegar back in time to fix his wrongs and ensure the survival of House Targaryen. Rhaegar knows his madness and hubris led to the destruction of everything he loves and cares for. Never again. OR AU: The Gods and fate reverse the hands of time. Elia seeks retribution and Rhaegar endeavors for redemption. In one life, they were husband and wife. In this one, they might just be each other’s biggest adversaries. But, while Elia and Rhaegar plan to prevent the tragedies that befell them, they find out they are not the only ones who were given a second chance. And not all who came back are their friends.

we fall apart as it gets dark by sunstealer (TheSunsetStar) - fanfic - 2/?

this one is SO dear to me <3

The apparent abduction of Lyanna Stark sets off a chain of events: Brandon Stark and his allies march to the Red Keep, where Brandon demands Rhaegar's head. A duel is called by Aerys, and fire serves as his champion, leading to the death of Brandon's father and Brandon's own imprisonment. It's only after these events that a letter arrives at Winterfell, written by Lyanna herself, explaining that she left of her own accord. The deaths of the Lord of Winterfell and the Heir of the Eyrie, along with Aerys' demand for the heads of Robert and Ned, ignite a rebellion. Elia, isolated in Kings Landing without her children, must play her role as the dutiful wife. However, complications arise when the man who once demanded her husband’s head becomes her constant companion, the Kingsguard sworn to her. Will she stay true to her duty or follow her husband's example and forsake it?

Sunset Embers by spearsndragons

Five years into King Rhaegar I's reign, the realm prospers under his progressive leadership. However, the same cannot be said for the king's family. Behind the walls of the Red Keep, Rhaegar grapples with his inner demons, and House Targaryen continues to be haunted by the war's tragic end. Water magic resurfaces across the sea in the Golden Empire of Yi Ti for the first time in centuries with the arrival of the Emperor's new wife. She works to uncover the forgotten history of the world, only to realize that her own past refuses to be buried. OR Dark AU: Is this love or a curse? To yearn for freedom while willingly chaining ourselves to someone, finding solace in the very shackles we can't bear to break?

wherever the wind blows by TheSunsetStar - 1/1 (part of a series)

Rhaegar comes back to her, bringing along a wife and child. Ashara comes back to her, grieving the loss of a child with wolfsblood. Oberyn also returns to her, having just returned from his journeys across Essos, offering words of apology. Everyone returns, yet her daughter never does. or in her desperation Elia gives her daughter to Varys and never sees her again.

Reckless by sunstealer (TheSunsetStar)

"Get out," she tells him. "Leave." "You're not going to talk to me?" His voice comes out hoarse; she wonders why. "You've done enough!" she lets out. He looks disappointed when she says it, his eyes clouding over. She almost apologizes for snapping at him. But she reminds herself that he shouldn't be here at all, he shouldn't be here with her. "Goodbye, Rhaegar," she says gently, not allowing any trace of emotion to surface in her voice. The name sounds foreign coming out of her mouth, as though it belongs to someone else. She wishes for the days to go back to before he met Lyanna. Before everything turned sour. Before it was too late. or Rhaegar returns to her but things are difficult now.

Baelon the Cruel and His Queen of Love and Beauty by sunstealer (TheSunsetStar) - fanfic - 6/?

Baelon Targaryen, the second-born son of King Aerys and Queen Rhaella, and the twin brother to Crown Prince Rhaegar, possessed an ethereal beauty expected of one with Valyrian blood. Yet, behind his captivating face, an aura of cruelty and ruthlessness lingered, casting an unsettling shadow over his reputation. And his sudden appearance at the Tourney at Harrenhal unknowingly changes everything. (or just a crack fic about Rhaegar's 'cruel' twin brother and his shenanigans at the famed Tourney at Harrenhal)

Right Where You Left Me by TheSunsetStar - fanfic - 19/19

elia is dead in this one, but she's so important to the story and i love this fic, so it makes the list :)

Rhaegar's life is spared by the valiant intervention of Arthur Dayne, moments before Robert deals the fatal blow. With their lives preserved, Rhaegar and the remaining Targaryens seek refuge on Dragonstone, eventually making their escape to Essos. Regrettably, Rhaegar is forced to leave his eldest daughter behind. Left in the midst of her adversaries, Rhaenys grows up surrounded by those who view her as an enemy. As time passes, she becomes entangled in the treacherous game of thrones, particularly in the aftermath of Cersei and Jaime Lannister's public execution for their incestuous relationship. Caught in a web of schemes and deceit, Rhaenys finds herself compelled to employ similar tactics in order to ensure her own survival.

[atopvisenyashill]

Do you think comparisons can be drawn between Targaryens sharing the same name? Aegon. Rhaenys. Aemon. Viserys. Daeron. Rhaena. Others?

YES! I think they’re very purposefully characters in conversation with each other actually. @transdimensional-void has this great meta here about all the rhae girlies and the way that relates to the themes in rhaegar's story. i also think there's a clear link between aemon the dragonknight, maester aemon, and jon snow (which is why i think jon was named aemon) and i've kinda talked about that here (although a bit angrily, haha) and I have a "jon and the aemons" tag as well for that reason.

then there's the daerons who i think are really interesting - Daeron the Young Dragon who started a violent war of conquest against Dorne without reason, who gets himself murdered under a peace banner because he bungles the whole thing so badly, and his younger brother has to do an entire religious penance walk barefoot through the desert lasting months just to sort everything out again. Then Daeron the Good, who helps end that war by refusing to play into the cronyism of his father's court - his father who only got the throne because of Daeron I's folly - and refusing to allow the disrespect of Naerys or Myriah, who settles everything by marrying Maron to Daenerys and doing this amazing PR campaign of praying to Baelor's statue with Maron and claiming he's doing Baelor's work, not Daeron's or Aegon's. Daeron I whose unnecessary death leads almost directly to a lifetime of reproductive abuse and spousal rape for Naerys, and Daeron II growing up in the shadow of this horrific life where he's the only protection his mother has and he's never enough, until she dies and suddenly he's the only thing standing in the way of Daenerys and an equally horrific end.

I think it's kind of a fandom joke that all Viserys' are flops and I do think that's a theme in the series - men trying to be Visenya by literally invoking her name but they simply do not have the juice. Viserys I with his inaction and his drive to feel Good Things Only, Viserys II keeping his eyes firmly shut to the follies of the younger Targaryens around him, Viserys III slowly losing his mind to grief until he turns all that anger out at poor Daenerys. Something to be said with how highly they're all linked to a younger relative they fail to care for, and the fact that those women are all linked narratively as well - Viserys and Rhaenyra, Viserys and Naerys, Viserys and Daenerys.

I think there's something incredible in how the names Rhaenys and Rhaena completely fall out of favor after the Dance and are replaced by Rhae, Rhaella, and Rhaelle in popularity. Rhaenys the Conqueror, her namesake Rhaenys the Queen Who Never Was, but the Dance proves that there can never be a Rhaenys again because there can never be a woman sitting the Iron Throne again. Rhaena the Black Bride, named for her grandmother, a Queen because she's a consort and remembered for being a Queen in her own right (in a metaphorical sense), Rhaena of Pentos being a dragon rider who knows how to play the game in a smart but compassionate way, all leading to poor Septa Rhaena, locked up for a beauty she can't possibly understand when she is so young, driven to the Faith by the actions of the mad, lustful family members who would never see her as anything more than a pretty face and a convenient womb.

There's also the idea that Daena named Daemon Blackfyre after Daemon Targaryen, because she revered Rhaenyra and felt Rhaenyra was treated unfairly that I find very interesting. Daena's claim being put aside, and just like Aegon III (the beloved, "last" living son of Rhaenyra and Daemon), Daemon is forced to say his claim comes from a father who does not deserve his love instead of the mother he's really dedicated to.

This is also why I tag all the Aegon's with their epithets - I actually think Aegon VI is going to have some sort of "Aegon the U______" name because you have Aegon the Usurper, Aegon the Unlucky, Aegon the Unworthy, and Aegon the Unlikely. Then there's the play of Aegon the Dragon vs Aegon the Dragonbane as well there!

I could go on! There's so much here that's interesting and yes, I do think there are a lot of links between characters with the same name or similar names.

[alaynasansa]

The Loss of Lady

He saw his father pleading with the king, his face etched with grief. He saw Sansa crying to herself at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart

Bran III — A Game of Thrones

He had only to look at Sansa's face to feel the rage twisting inside him once again. The last fortnight of their journey had been a misery. Sansa blamed Arya and told her that it should have been Nymeria who died. And Arya was lost after she heard what had happened to her butcher's boy. Sansa cried herself to sleep, Arya brooded silently all day long, and Eddard Stark dreamed of a frozen hell reserved for the Starks of Winterfell

Eddard IV — A Game of Thrones

He remembered Rhaegar's infant son, the red ruin of his skull, and the way the king had turned away, as he had turned away in Darry's audience hall not so long ago. He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna pleaded once

Eddard IV — A Game of Thrones

What was it that Jon had said when they found the pups in the snow ? Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord. And he had killed Sansa's, and for what ? Was it guilt he was feeling ? Or fear ? If the gods had sent these wolves, what folly had he done ?

Eddard IV — A Game of Thrones

He was thinking back to the day Arya had been found, to the look on the queen's face when she said, We have a wolf, so soft and quiet

Eddard IV — A Game of Thrones

They'd let the queen kill Lady, that was horrible enough

Arya II — A Game of Thrones

Perhaps she had used up all her tears for Lady and Bran

Sansa II — A Game of Thrones

At first she thought she hated him for what they'd done to Lady, but after Sansa had wept her eyes dry, she told herself that it had not been Joffrey's doing, not truly

Sansa II — A Game of Thrones

"I am sorry for your girl, Ned. Truly. About the wolf, I mean"

Eddard VII — A Game of Thrones

"You're horrible !," she screamed at her sister. "They should have killed you instead of Lady !"

Sansa III — A Game of Thrones

Sansa sat up. "Lady," she whispered. For a moment it was as if the direwolf was there in the room, looking at her with those golden eyes, sad and knowing. She had been dreaming, she realized. Lady was with her, and they were running together, and... and... trying to remember was like trying to catch the rain with her fingers. The dream faded, and Lady was dead again

Sansa III — A Game of Thrones

The girls do not even have that much, he thought. Their wolves might have kept them safe, but Lady is dead and Nymeria's lost, they're all alone

Jon VII — A Game of Thrones

Bran felt all cold inside. "She lost her wolf," he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father's guardmen had returned from the south with Lady's bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the Old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned

Bran VI — A Game of Thrones

By the time she reached the godswood, the noises had faded to a faint rattle of steel and a distant shouting. Sansa pulled her cloak tighter. The air was rich with the smells of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought.

Sansa II — A Clash of Kings

And what will they do to me ? Sansa found herself thinking of Lady again. She could smell out falsehood, she could, but she was dead, Father had killed her, on account of Arya. She drew the knife and held it before her with both hands

Sansa II — A Clash of Kings

She hated Ser Amory Lorch for Yoren, and she hated Ser Meryn Trant for Syrio, the Hound for killing the butcher's boy Mycah, and Ser Illyn and Prince Joffrey and the queen for the sake of her father and Fat Tom and Desmond and the rest, and even for Lady, Sansa's wolf

Arya VI — A Clash of Kings

"That was Arya's wolf," she said. "Lady never hurt you, but you killed her anyway"

Sansa III — A Clash of Kings

She shouted for Ser Dontos, for her brothers, for her dead father and her dead wolf, for gallant Ser Loras who had given her a red rose once, but none of them came

Sansa IV — A Clash of Kings

"Lady," she whimpered softly, wondering if she would meet her wolf again when she was dead

Sansa VII — A Clash of Kings

Arya was glad to hear that the castle of the Darrys would be burned. That was where they'd brought her when she'd been caught after her fight with Joffrey, and where the queen had made her father kill Sansa's wolf. It deserves to burn

Arya X — A Clash of Kings

A shiver went through her. "A monster," she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. "Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher's boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He's evil and cruel, my lady, it's so. And the queen as well"

Sansa I — A Storm of Swords

That was such a sweet dream, Sansa thought drowsily. She had been back in Winterfell, running through the godswood with her Lady. Her father had been there, and her brothers, all of them warm and safe. If only dreaming could make it so...

Sansa IV — A Storm of Swords

I must be brave. Her torments would soon be ended, one way or the other. If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though ; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now

Sansa IV — A Storm of Swords

The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. "Ygritte ?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark...

Jon VIII — A Storm of Swords

"I'll have a song for you," he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. "I wish that you were Lady," she said

Sansa VI — A Storm of Swords

She saw Ned Stark, and beside him little Sansa with her auburn hair and a shaggy grey dog that might have been her wolf

Cersei II — A Dance with Dragons

[horizon-verizon]

Something that bothers me about DotD is that I feel GRRM doesn't help his case much if he means the reader to sympathize with Rhaenyra's cause despite her shortcomings with the nature of the trajectory he chooses for her downfall. Now I'm not at all saying it's wrong to show her as flawed person, with hints of era-typical bigotry. But her acts against Nettles etc. make a reading that she wasn't good enough to support her after all not uneasy, leading to sexist implications considering the theme.

*EDIT (5/31/24):

Doylistically

Rhaenyra suffers from really bad sexist writing on GRRM's, not just the maesters', part and it undermines his own point.* And no, she doesn't need to be necessarily "moral" like Dany to be a deserving ruler.

The point of her story was to highlight how no matter how good or evil or morally ambiguous a person you are, if you are female, you are subject to losing a power men are just granted and subject to "mobilized" male violence. Or usurped. And this is inherently wrong. Rhaenyra chose to go to war rather than give up. This is valuable. Visenya was not thinking "for the realm" or for the benefit of smallfolk or outside of her family, yet she as so many fans bc she was not passive or restricted by "madness". She has less sexist writing. The below is still relevant.

*EDITED POST* (5/4/24)

Found this lovely post by la-pheacienne HERE, explaining how Rhaenyra's tragedy is an ancient Greek on as well, how Rhaenyra became what she was.

It's strange. The Dance is both very very simple, yet it presents interesting questions.

I go back and forth, bc I see GRRM's sexist folly AND some points abt how one evaluates and has discrepancies of the "worth" of a female vs male leader.

ESPECIALLY SINCE WE HAVE TO REMEMBER THIS BOOK, IN-WORLD, WAS WRITTEN WITH THE IDEA THAT FEMALE-RULER=BAD RULER=BAD-FOR-THE-REALM!!!

It's a story of two very flawed factions (one still, I think, in the actual wrong) vying for power, but it essentially is the bloody catalyst for the need of sets up the death of the dragons and Daenerys'/Rhaegar's existence in Westeros--Dany's being Azor Ahai!

Rhaenyra unequivocally relied much on on her posiiton and class privilege to carry her through, as many female rulers and nobles would because without it they cannot hope to have the power they often are denied. But bc this privilege comes with the price of some level of compliance with the status quo AND can make one develop forgo looking at things apart from one's survival or dignity, it can also lead us into hurting others like Nettles who would have actually helped us succeed.

"Nature" vs Nurture--Doylist 'nature' vs Watsonian 'nurture'.

What makes a person who they are? Their environment and history (the parameters and foundations for their decision-making), or just their decisions? Where is the line between showing a woman affected by her lack of political training (but still having to self-determine red/black dress moment and her drawing strength from her Valyrian heritage) AND showing her fairly as a person in her own right with many flaws? OR where do we realize that we ourselves are subject to making arguments based on principles we haven't learned are sexist in themselves?

And I am not a mother, so I don't know what it's like to lose not one but two kids in quick succession and under a year. There was a clear choice on GRRM/probably really Gyldayn/the story-teller's, part in making Rhaenyra seemingly "incapacitated" to be involved with politics after KL until Daemon left and she was left with the envious Mysaria (our Iago-figure) to have her fears played on.

We have to remember that this account is the least well-documented in F&B and the one with the most deliberately unreliable narrators with agendas in presenting some characters, esp Rhaenyra, a certain way. Septon Eustace writes Rhaenyra stuffed her face with pies AND that she cut her hand on the throne so the throne must have rejected her after landing in KL. This is most likely a retrospective exaggeration of the real situation out of spite AND plain slander, because:

even if she were eating a lot, it'd most likely be depression/grief/stress-eating and she had a lot to be worried about, her 2 sons died, PLUS she'd maybe eat her fav foods to feel more at the home that always should have been hers

we already heard the writers fat shame her for not putting off her pregnancy weight -- sexist patriarchal body standards ignoring real health & anatomy/medicine to affirm itself -- meanwhile Helaena & Aegon the Elder both were plump-fat, and we hear of no insults or repetitive notes about them?!

Eustace really hated her probably for not using him as he wanted her to or what he was used to as Viserys, Viserys' courtiers, & Alicent most often did PLUS Rhaenyra was ultra-femme, but was not demure nor pretended to be -- again, sexist standards of feminine behavior or presentation

Aegon IV was as unworthy a leader as anything we ever see in Westeros...yet we hear nothing of the throne cutting him...Aenys I? Maegor, and not in his death!; it's a chair made of literal swords...people are going to get cut; OR it never happened bc Rhaenyra was wearing armor at the time -- basically superstition needs to be logically analyzed before we go "that's symbolism!"

A) GRRM Othellos Rhaenyra...Kinda. I just See some Things that Remind Me of the Play

Here, we know Rhaenyra definitely ordered Nettles' death, this isn't a Gyldayn invention or misunderstanding for the "Othello-ing" I name. It is narratively important that Rhaenyra become a tyrant not bc she was an evil person or stupid from the jump, but because she is an example of one who didn't manage to work through her own fear, grief, and paranoia (caused by the system's constant failures against her) to do as Dany did and rely on compassion instead of fear to assure her survival.

1.

Without as much proper or as-much-political/military training as Jaehaerys I's and Baelon and Aemon had--Rhaenyra was that much more vulnerable. BUT she also could have gained a lot of experience in ruling Dragonstone in all thsoe years (15-16, or 20?) alone.

Let's take the first scenario: To not be fully ready or developed enough to put up much of a necessary fight against those that would oppose her and dissolve further than the already shaky bonds between Targ family members that existed since (honestly) either the generation of Aenys' and Maegor or Jaehaerys I.

After adopting much of Andal/Westerosi noble customs and especially male primogeniture, the Targs began betraying its female members and underdeveloping them almost since its dynasty's inception.

So GRRM makes Rhaenyra's flaws a direct result of her generational deprivation and gender discrimination, coming from Maegor and Aenys, but at the same time, it seems he went too hard in the paint to make Rhaenyra a woman without some necessary sense to accentuate her victimhood by making most of the bigger strategic decisions the blacks make come from the men around her BUT he also made sure to clue us in on how Rhaenyra is not like Dany in that she ultimately chooses her class privilege instead of measured compassion to maybe save herself.

A question some may have: Why make your female character so flawed instead of making her more of a great & strategic or very compassionate foe to reckon with, which would further hammer in how unfair it was that she was usurped? We can extrapolate that GRRM not making her active enough (w/o her being a warrior necessarily, at least a strategist or bring one startegy up!) was just sexist of GRRM. this plus the sex abuse agianst her, We didn't need all that.

I mentioned how Rhaenyra serves as a way to re-contextualize Daenerys and the importance of ingenuity & compassion that will really carry one one into both personal and collective success/survival. (HERE is a Tweet by former brideoffires explaining).

Also, they both refuse to bow down to the oppressive standards of their time in their own ways. Even with Rhaenyra fighting for her claim and to protect her kids, she defying patriarchal restrictions of female leadership by refusing to just give up the crown despite the greens' usurpation and crowning Aegon. There is value in that, even with it going to war. Rhaenyra is an aspect of Dany's own struggles. She is where a woman in either position could falter. They share a pride needed to resist against those sociopoilitical circumstances and assert themselves.

Basically, Rhaenyra's most critical mistake and error and moment of self destruction was to accuse Nettles & use her own class privilege against a vulnerable. She relied on a thing that ultimately was set against her (you can't really separate the misogyny of the aristocratic class) to use against her "enemy", in order to feel powerful, even with her having been driven to that state from mainly others' desire for her throne.

After all, male claimants and rulers who are insane, predatory, or just weak are pushed towards the throne (Aegon the Elder, prime example for this story) all the time, so why not have a flawed or "mediocre" woman be the center of this story to accentuate the double standard held against her? To show how people like Cersei get...that, and what Dany as a woman could & has gone up against? Rhaenyra being as she was rather highlights how Misogyny doesn't care if you are a genuinely good person leader, one bad move, you're done. And Rhaenyra--to go back to the scenario abt "training" or if she did obtain "enough" experience, and even then we should wonder how much or if GRRM just wanted her to be that way for plot-sake--wasn't the most strategic, much of it due to her class entitlement. Which the greens share.

Men like Robert Baratheon, Stannis, Ramsay Snow/Bolton, or any of the current male Greyjoys who grew up in the Iron Islands? Even Canon!Jon Snow is better than most men of his time, but he is cruel when he thinks he has to be and has himself executed a child for disobedience and treachery. He also makes emotion-based/involved/inspired decisions (not often, but they exist), and he also makes mistakes. They get to hold positions of power without any added troubles (as Rhaenyra had) to the regular ones of greedy challengers or those resisting their plunder and reaping.

Why should we hold Rhaenyra to a much higher standard than these men, as much censure, as the fandom and canon society does? Especially since it's not really her story (overall), it's Dany's? None of the autonomously ruling female leaders of the story receive half as much censure for character or leadership skills (true or false) as those men I listed. Rhaenyra and Daenerys "Stormborn" Targaryen are usually the subjects, with some other Westerosi women as well, sometimes Catelyn even. All that is obviously due to misogyny, to this idea that because you are not the typical candidate or desired one for the position of power, you need to "prove" yourself to specifically those who get that power without having to fight that hard or experience the doubt of leadership similar to a woman.

In other words, trying to actually 100% buy into what the Westerosi male lords or what we think they'd want in a leader was never going to work for Rhaenyra. She kinda already did, and look where that got her?

2.

How much of her paranoia (actually her breakdown) is understandable and consequential, as GRRM wants us to consider?

Gyldayn would say or think she should have been better, but considering what she was up against as a woman, does he really think he could do better? Or rather, how much do we excuse her for in lieu of her victimhood in the face of lifelong concentrated abuse and misogyny at almost every front?

Even if she had somehow quickly overcome her own grief in less than a year after both of her oldest sons died before she took KL, why are we so expectant of that? That's inhumane to me. Or I could be over emotionalizing it, idk & I don't think so.

And with the green having taken the royal coffers before they left, what would someone else have done under the immediate pressures of the lack of money, fear from smallfolk around the executions whose observations are charged and hate against the taxes raised bc of said lost moneys, and then the worst rioting exacerbated/caused by a crazy man most likely sent by the Citadel to turn everyone not just against her but all the Targs and destroy the dragons....

It's a lot all at once and something that not even Jaehaerys had to deal with, since:

Maegor at least was very dead by the time he actually got to KL.

The royal treasury was always intact AND he had Rego Draz (a Pentoshi man) help him develop his strategy of taxation, which encouraged the nobles to spend more....again in totoal PEACETIME.

since he was male, he never had to face widespread and local disfavor or contempt for his abilities (subtle or unsubtle) on account for things he cannot change or of beliefs against his gender, right to occupy a space, etc. as a woman does, esp a woman slotted to rule over other men -- people doubted him for his age/lack of experience, but they gave him more grace than they did Rhaena, his older sister

Finally, Jaehaerys may have lost two brothers (Viserys and Aegon) and a father, but Aenys didn't die by cold murder. His brothers we: A) don't even know he was close to or not, there were big age differences b/t him and them B) they were siblings, not one's children

Even without the losses of her kids, after a lifetime of having to decide how and even if one should try to legitimize oneself as one deserving of the same sort of respect and claims to power that another demographic just gets w/o trying--what does that do to the mind of a person, and under the pressures listed?

For Othello, it was using illusions and misunderstandings of adultery to put his sense of his masculinity in danger (as black masculinity is always put into question as being too "bestial" and inhuman, oversexualized--undeserving of the white chaste woman/high prize/object of white male power/public and political respect or "trust").

For Rhaenyra, it was her gender held against her AND then the betrayals, and she defaulted to feudal classism and misgynoir. Her conformity to that white female chastity of body and mind: what right did she think she had to claim power or herself without doing it in the name of a living "true" male heir/authority? And like Othello, she endured it her entire life, beginning with Alicent. At the same time, enjoying the trappings of a royal dragonrider who grew up believing that Targaryens were awesome beings who quite literally built Westeros the way it is?

That, I think, is what GRRM tries to create, this state of ethical "ambiguity".

It is true that compared to his other female Targ characters, the ambiguity is lacking because Rhaenyra is made too vulnerable to circumstances before her birth without her having quite enough substantial pushback or strategic will.

But Gyladyn wrote this book and we need to be careful with how he frames things or describes them.

B)

This will read back and forth, because I think there are other merits in some criticisms of Rhaenyra's character and her characterization.

1. Maybe you can skip this if you have repetition

I think that GRRM does try to write her from that Shakespearean aspect of psychological ambiguity from Othello, but I kinda agree that the symbol of the hysterical woman unfit to decide important matters of community and state fits Rhaenyra too well, whereas Othello actively resisted Iago more than Rhaenyra did Mysaria or her other councilors OR better yet, why not subvert Shakespeare a bit and have Rhaenyra do it better than Othello and last longer?

But that could be bc its' a maester, GYLDAYN, writing this book as propaganda!

And comparing her to Dany, again, "really quick", for a reminder:

Even with Dany still existing and Rhaenyra losing, I'd prefer to see her still be more creative and active--just more engaged before more principal players in her camp betrayed her without her provocation, rather than just two dragonseeds when she had other dragonseeds with her and a full council (even if Celtigar had to go). Again, why not have her make one plan or get inspired once and have others refine that plan/beginnings of a plan? Perhaps make Celtigar the betrayer, so that she is faced with relying more on less conservative mindsets in her council? IDK.

(disagreement w/anon) But then this story would be so much less obviously confrontational, as I have already said above, 7 people are dumb:

the hate against her tells us much about other readers and ourselves as to what expectations we have towards men vs women put into situations like Rhaenyra's, where she's usurped on account of societal sexism AND one of her ancestors (Jaehaerys) making it that much harder for women to be considered fit rulers/inheritors of power.

2.

Aside from her other mistakes:

not keeping close tabs on the greens while at Dragonstone so she'll be alerted to Viserys' worst days so she can travel back to KL and make sure the greens couldn't do anything w/o resistance -> 12/2/23 EDIT: Alicent wasn't planning the gathering the green council so much as improving immediately after Viserys died: her imprisoning Rhaenyra's supporters at court, her gathering the lords for the council, and her keeping it a secret Viserys died were all quieted events that she likely did not share with many people, maybe Otto and that's it. Not even Criston. These movements were what "saved" her the necessary few hours to get the jump on Rhaenyra; she would not have been very vocal or repetitive even if she did share her "plans" that could have been more wishes-turned-into action-in-the-moment than real, detailed, and prepared plans. So it's not that out of possibility to believe that even if Rhaenyra or Mysaria sent spies they'd pick up on this.

*not going to Jeyne Arryn after fleeing KL (this was a very understandable move to make, as she needed dragons & there was nothing left or safe for her back in KL)

Rosby and Stokeworth: for all that we say she was grieving, that Corlys/advisors pressured her, that she felt that the need for supporters around KL for the present dangers outweighed far-reaching ones for her rule later, she was still Queen and it was still a mistake because she needed to shore up female claims for herself and her descendants (two things can be true at once); this I see as Rhaenyra bowing to a real, concerning pressure that you may not think is heavy but is, and one can choose to "forgive" her for it or not and deal with the implications for either scenario because she was b/t having some crownlands close lords on her side while still in KL. Her ability to maintain herself on the throne depended on convincing men like Corlys/as many men as possible on her side. That's just the lot for female rulers of ancient, medieval, early-mod period patriarchal societies.

the dragonseeds & Nettles (nail in the coffin, the actual undisputed wrong)

I think that I can say that Rhaenyra was not the ideal leader in case of temperament or intelligence. She wasn't 100% dumb as hell by "nature" (whatever that is in ASoIaF), indicated by her making fewer mistakes before her sons died, but she still made a pretty dumb one before they died (#3 in the list above). She was purposefully made a bit more shortsighted than Alicent.

And here's another thing. She only started to be hated in KL after the taxes (that needed to be raised after Aegon/Tyland Lannister/the greens stole all the treasury money, even when he himself organized a feast celebrating Aemond and himself for Lucerys' murder and Aemond burned down one of the major suppliers of food in Westeros' "south" regions: the Riverlands and esp their farmer's villages and fields) AND when Larys purposefully spread rumors about her before the Shepherd came along and worsened it with his own misogynist rhetoric. Because all these beleaguered people wanted was to get out of danger and starvation, & when she couldn't immediately provide it, they understandably got riotous.

However, it is also true that with what she dealt with after taking KL--riots incited by Larys and the Shepherd, accusing her of killing Helaena; Larys taking out Maelor in the first place when he was perfectly safe in the Keep; being unsure of how long her followers would follow if she didn't at least comply with the Stokeworth and Rosby incidents.

And her moving to Dragonstone, to me, was not an absolute mistake or at least something she could avoid without losing another valuable thing. She and her family needed their own base, which is psychologically and politically true. But, again...not monitoring her father and waiting for the aftermath of his death at all, if that is in fact what she did? smh.

Why isn't it enough to know that she was unfairly usurped? Why do we look for the ideal leader in the woman during her own disempowerment, and not at how there is a difference in expectation for her versus her male rival in terms of competency?

3.

Let's play a little here. Even if Nettles and Daemon did sleep with each other, it is very clear that the better strategic decision would have been to question her after all her true enemies were defeated and make use of her until then.

But, once more and as I say in this Twitter thread, the deal with Nettles was accompanied and carried by the already existing Targ-Andal sexist paradigm of legitimizing one's rule through blood-purist/sexist principles. In that way, canon!Rhaenyra was not that much more exceptional than other Westerosi women under the condition of pressure looking to shore up their own claims.

AND again, it's a maester, GYLDAYN, writing this book as propaganda against female rulership/autonomy!

The Dance, more than any other account in F&B, is the most unreliably told tale because its sources (Mushroom, Orwyle/Munkun, and Septon Eustace) all seek to besmirch or objectify Rhaenyra for their own ends and are the only ones that provide the "clearest" narrations for Gyldayn, another master, to narrate. And GRRM does it on purpose:

We only get specific events that are told through a hateful gaze; what other traits and behaviors Rhaenyra could have done or said, we do not have access to and sometimes must use context to conclude our best guess. Thus, Rhaenyra also feels, to the reader, as if she could be something more than what's presented. Unlike its male characters, the Dance account gives one-note descriptions of its adult female participants because women already do not occupy or perform the same public activities as their male counterparts and thus are given less attention, unless they are Rhaenys, Alicent, and Rhaenyra. And we aren't privy to their most vulnerable moments (unless they are likely made up to disparage them OR so public as to be noticed). Emphasis on it feeling that way. It is Mushroom who says that Rhaenyra was angry that Daemon disobeyed her about Nettles: "By evenfall, Rhaenyra Targaryen found herself sore beset on every side, her reign in ruins. “The queen wept when they told her how Ser Lorent died,” Mushroom testifies, “but she raged when she learned that Maidenpool had gone over to the foe, that the girl Nettles had escaped, that her own beloved consort had betrayed her ("Rhaenyra Overthrown")". Which I can believe, since it follows her need for backup that she lost in Ser Lorent and the lack of such backup due to Daemon's refusal to follow orders or allow her orders followed. I can see Rhaenyra being angry and feeling betrayed by that. But Mushroom, as ever, also injects himself where it is impossible that he'd even be seriously considered as her companion and confidante: "At dawn, a hundred men attended her in the throne room, but one by one they slipped away or were dismissed, until only her sons and I remained with her. ‘My faithful Mushroom,’ Her Grace called me, ‘would that all men were true as you. I should make you my Hand.’ When I replied that I would sooner be her consort, she laughed. No sound was ever sweeter. It was good to hear her laugh" ("Rhaenyra Overthrown")". So is Mushroom using the hypothetical event where Rhaenyra was angry with Daemon and raged at the defiance, or did he make it all up to aggrandize himself and establish an intimate relationship with Rhaenyra for the audience, what we the readers are faced with? I tend to think the former because my idea of Rhaenyra and her tyranny coming from grief-misogyny follows such.

this is the event (the civil war/the Dance) where the women, the center, the moment of Targ history where the dragons and life-supporting magic were lost and started to die without its matriarch, occurs when the would-be autonomous female heir loses her power? Not a coincidence -> context and ratcheting up the stakes for Dany, bc what would the reception to her be like?

And again, without a closer look at her upbringing, with all these people telling her story in their way and with their own agendas and misogyny....well it's hard for me, the reader, to totally devote myself to writing Rhaenyra's comparative simpleness to just her being her and it not her developing herself to what was available to her.

5.

Another theory is not a theory, it's obvious. Rhaenyra is a character developed after Daenerys was created and Rhaenyra is not meant to surpass Daenerys in military leadership acumen or potential (because she grew up in a context where Targ women lose much power and go untrained) AND he is mean to be her "sword", her "Visenya". Again, GRRM might have gone a bit overboard...but he's not terribly wrong.

Also, once again, they both refuse to bow down to the oppressive standards of their time in their own ways. Even with Rhaenyra fighting for her claim and to protect her kids, she defying patriarchal restrictions of female leadership by refusing to just give up the crown despite the greens' usurpation and crowning Aegon. There is value in that, even with it going to war. Rhaenyra is an aspect of Dany's own struggles. They share a pride needed to resist against those sociopoilitical circumstances and assert themselves.

If Dany didn't exist, I would have preferred to see a more non-motherhood sense of responsibility, a more altruistic side of Rhaenyra (that still doesn't outperform Dany).

6. (inspired by & courtesy of brideoffires's post HERE)

It's not a coincidence that more female Targs display the most pleasure and affinity for dragonriding:

Rhaena (Alyssa's daughter), who after bonding with Dreamfyre came more into herself and bestowed her siblings with dragon eggs so that they themselves would bond with their dragons sooner and thus would be one self-possessed early on to even become rulers

Alysanne, who cried when she couldn't ride Silverwing anymore

Saera, who would have tried to bond with a dragon and ride to freedom

Aerea, who claimed Balerion and also rode to escape her damaged mother

Daenerys Stormborn, who restored dragons to the dynasty with fire and blood (blood magic & bravery)

Rhaenyra, who became a dragonrider at 7 years old

Rhaena (Laena's daughter), who also managed to have her egg hatched when no other dragon existed

Rhaenys (Jocelyn Baratheon's daughter) protested in favor of her unborn child and died with her dragon

Baela, who fight a usurper on behalf of her stepmother and lost her dragon but made sure to give Aegon the Elder much more injuries that turned him inside out enough to be so contemptible to be put down by his own followers

and Rhaenys the Queen, who loved dragon-riding the most of her siblings despite not being a warrior like her sister, yet being the literal mother/direct ancestor of the entire dynasty

Yes, you have male dragonriders but looking at Targ history, who usually has a closer metaphorical relationships with the Targ dragons? And after who, chosen by right, was usurped because she was a woman, and whose kids then continue the line?

Notice how a running theme is motherhood as well? In ASoIaF (all of it, not just the novels) GRRM is fixated on motherhood and a woman bringing forth new/restored things. Or when she's stifled from doing so. Daenerys is a prime example. She brought dragons back when Aegon V tried and failed, when Aegon III tried and failed and when Aegon IV did a mockery of it by trying to take Dorne. Rhaenyra gave birth to accomplished people (Jace, and Viserys II) and became a mother to two more (Baela and Rhaena). Again, it is through her that the Targs can even continue. Yes, Daemon is the father, but he wasn't made heir--Rhaenyra was--and Jace would have been a good king. And she was fertile, having birthed five kids and safely. Unlike Alysanne, who had many miscarriages and stillbirths and infants dying before they got to 3.

Conclusions

Again, I go back and forth, bc I see GRRM's sexist folly AND some points abt how one evaluates and has discrepancies of the "worth" of a female vs male leader.

Rhaenyra is a good example of a victim who wasn't necessarily a good person or an ideal ruler and neither was she a horrible ruler or an evil person (until Nettles).

GYLDAYN is writing this book as propaganda against female rulers/women having power that men traditionally are granted and have. But GRRM still puts Rhaenyra through a lot of abuse without coming up with more than 1 or 2 ways to avoid or resist them (red-black dress; moving to Dragonstone, we don't see her try to manipulate Viserys..etc.).

Some come away with the feeling that Rhaenyra has less depth because she relies on her heritage and the fact Viserys bestows her: What else, other than her Valyrian heritage and her kids, keeps Rhaenyra going, they may ask? Similar to Dany, Rhaenyra uses the fact that she does come from Valyrian dragonriders and conquering Targs to validate to herself that she deserves to fight for the throne. Differently from Dany, she does this with the fact that her father clearly named her heir and would have given it with his own hands.

This is what rhaenin-time says in this reblog:

It just rings so familiar to real-world politics and conversations. How many people with reactionary/conservative politics have we all encountered who, instead of arguing about why their stance is better, start to nit-pick inconsistencies and hypocrisy in liberal and leftist stances, even though what they offer is far worse? Because they're not saying their side does not have the same problems. They're saying those problems are natural, those problems cannot be resisted, that anyone who tries and does so imperfectly is a hypocrite, so you're a bad person for trying at all.

At the same time, I've also felt the frustration with the negligence of some more personal depth that is similar to women like Visenya or Rhaena (the Queen Dowager).

Again, to repeat myself (from point #4), it all comes from the desire for the alternative leader to the conservative type to be morally better than them for the greatest possible change. But we already have that in Dany and Rhaenyra is only mean to serve as to re-contextualize Dany & hammer in how she is so important.

Rhaenyra's one main "flaw" (shaped by society/history) is that she was blinded by her need to self-assert herself above all else in the face of her dissenters...since childhood and never developed past that crutch partly bc that was where she was.

*EDIT* (8/21/23):

THIS is a great post by @mononijikayu about medieval queens, female rulers, the history of how women in leadership positions were made and seen as threats to the very structure of social "order", and contextualizing Rhaenyra thru Empress Matilda. I didn't even know about Matilda's husband being comparable to Rhaneyra's Daemon! PLZ READ!!!!

Excerpt:

just as much, along with these fictitious portrayals, more lies are depicted. these women are considered vixens that cause havoc to men by shifting them into desires and danger. through the written word, we see how women are cast in roles of villains in men’s lives. it is because by their conclusive thoughts, women are the only creatures that are able to turn ‘good honorable men’ into despicable creatures who do shameful, deplorable acts for the sake of women’s pleasures.  [...] it is within this narrative that ancient chroniclers declare that women were in fact the doom of men. if they were not able to control the dangers posed by the wiles of women, then the foundations of the mighty society they had built would be up in flames.  [...] as i mentioned, these factors of community are written down and preserved. and with that, the example of the ancients were the foundations by which medieval society built itself. the same concepts continued to cause the same issue within society and that was the exclusion of women from participating in the bigger picture of community and state, much so with governing states in their own right—without judgment or disapproval. 

[cowboysanddragons23]

How to identify a Rhaegar x Lyanna shipper:

-Lack of empathy towards the victims of the Rebellion (amongst them Elia and her children, insulting them just for the "sin" of getting in the middle of their pairing).

-Obsessive desire to absolve Rhaegar of his sins, trying to portray him as an angel who can do no wrong.

-Reduction of the tragedy to a high school romcom.

-Insistence on saying that Elia is ok with Rhaegar going with Lyanna, solely basing themselves with Elia being Dornish (even though there is a lot to suggest that Elia would never agree to this folly).

-Vomiting again and again that Rhaegar and Lyanna were in love, even though there is nothing that can prove it and when found out, they will project themselves, accusing the other party of using headcanons.

-Adscription to the worst interpretation of Rhaegar and Lyanna.

[dulcewrites]

The saddest bit about reader is that she's likely more like Alicent than Elia or Cersei in that both Elia and Cersei had brothers who would casually kingslay if they had tears in their eyes.

Like, Elia was strong as fuck. There isn't any doubt she was, she had to convince her family that she was at least content in her marriage because Oberyn would have 100% murdered both Aerys's racist ass and Rhaegar's dumbass. Doran would have tried for diplomacy to get her and her kids back if not start a war for her.

Cersei couldn't tell Jaime shit about Robert did to her because Robert would be dead. Tywin, unless he was hit with Viserys level of delusion, went to war for (the throne tbh) her and her bastard kids.

The reader comes from a powerful and influential house but has no support in that same way. Her mother and Alicent's are pretty much on par in terms of support (and Alicent's died) and their father's are not much help aside from getting them to be birthing machines for a Targaryen.

The loyalty they have is either on account of desire or unrequited love (Criston-Quinton/Aegon) or through the children they obviously love and want to protect but end up being unintended shields in conflicts (I feel like Daella will end up standing up for Reader in the same way Aegon did for Alicent). The only familial support they have is through the children that also tie them to the environment they are in. They don't have family to truly turn to as they are the sacrificial lamb into the dragons jaws for power.

(I don't think Larys has any desire for Alicent beyond getting enjoyment out of using her desperation to hurt her)

I love love love this ask because I went back and forth on deciding of if I wanted reader to have siblings or a sibling. If she did have sibling, like you said it probably would’ve been an Alicent situation where they are older and have their own lives or younger to the point where she would feel bad burdening them. I wish we would have gotten more information on Alicent’s relationship with her brother because based on the first ep it seems like they close. Or close enough she worried about him during the tourney. Her family says they are behind her but that’s AFTER she becomes queen and makes her allegiance clear with the green dress. The back her as long as the possibility of their blood being on the throne stands

If I did I probably would’ve made them much younger than her (reader has the strongest eldest daughter energy it’s sad lmao).

But I kind of have a headcanon in my head that reader’s parents had trouble conceiving, so she’s their only kid. It only adds to the pressure her mother puts on her. When her parents pass, whatever is in their name is hers. She’s their legacy.

Which moves into how reader’s kids are hers. I think she holds on very tight bc they will be in history books at Targaryens, despite the fact that she’s the one that had them and fought for them. I think that eats her up a lot. They will be targaryen dragon riders and probably expected to marry in the family and basically dilute her (and honestly Alicent’s “impure” blood”). And this ask reminded me about larys monologue at the end of ep 6.

“"What are children, but a weakness? A folly? A futility? Through them you imagine you cheat the great darkness of its victory. You will persist forever in some form or another. As if they will keep you from the dust. But for them you surrender what you should not. You may know what is the right thing to be done, but love stays the hand. Love is a downfall. Best to make your way through life unencumbered if you ask me”

I think Alicent and reader (rightly or wrongly) see their kids as extensions of them bc that’s all they have.

On the quinton/Aegon front, another fear of reader’s is that if she were to give into her desires, the loyalty would be gone. That they have gotten what they wanted and there is no need to help anymore. She sort of dangles herself as carrot a lot of the time bc she doesn’t know another way to gain power. She’s been told since she was young that being pretty and nice goes a long way with men.

The way otto tells Alicent “you’re the most comely girl in court, why must you ruin yourself” when talking about her clearly anxiety driven nail picking… is the way reader’s mother tells her she’s prettier than the other girls that Alicent could marry to Aemond, but it’s her tense disposition that isn’t cute. Not even seeing reader’s tense attitude… is bc of HER. Like her mother tells not to be so self deprecating while also demeaning her 💀

[asoiafdrabbles]

A Coin Has Three Sides, Chapter 4

AO3 Link

Lyanna was furious. Trying to hide it, of course, but for all the Starks seemed to have perfected an expression as cold as their frigid lands, Rhaenys could see the signs.

It was beautiful to watch.

Covering a smirk behind her cup, Rhaenys kept her eyes moving around the room so as not to give away the attention she was paying to her family’s enemies. The inhabitants of Winterfell were pretending to miss the tension at the high table, or, she realized, perhaps were too dense to notice it.

Lord Stark had never fully recovered from his time in the Black Cells, leaving most of the running of the North to his dutiful middle brother, but he normally made some show of pulling himself together around the royal family, as he was doing tonight. Rhaenys had the impression he hadn’t been in favor of the match between Sansa and Aemon, but also wouldn’t move against the rest of his family.

Lady Stark, on the other hand, had clearly wanted her daughter to be Queen and was as full of hate towards Dorne as any Andal. If the gods were good, Sansa would be thoroughly corrupted and unrecognizable by the time her trip was over, or perhaps even dishonored and unworthy of a prince.

Ned Stark, the true Lord of Winterfell in all but name, was exchanging glances with Catelyn, and Rhaenys was reminded of the sordid rumor that Aemon had whispered to her the night before, something he’d heard from one of the little lordlings he’d befriended.

”Cregan was conceived before Uncle Brandon was imprisoned, there is no doubt he is Uncle Brandon's son. But some say he is his only trueborn child, that Uncle Ned is far too close to his brother’s wife, and that Uncle Brandon is rarely able to let another touch him.”

There would be no way to prove it without one or the other party admitting to that fact, but fact mattered far less than perception. If the South were to find out about Sansa’s questionable birth, that, too, would make her a less appropriate match, especially with how some still thought of Aemon as illegitimate.

She turned her attention to her brother. Sat beside Cregan, Rhaenys realized how tense he’d been the last few days only because he was now far more relaxed. The smile on his face as he and his cousin conversed seemed genuine.

Cregan, meanwhile, was losing a battle not to smirk every time his eyes drifted over to Sansa. She wondered if he believed the rumors (or knew them to be true) or if they just didn’t get along. As far as she knew, the heir of Winterfell wanted nothing to do with the South, and considering his father’s folly had left him a broken shell of a supposedly once charming and talented man, Rhaenys couldn’t blame him for that opinion.

A King had power to break the betrothals of his subjects and while he could not force new betrothals through, even Rhaenys had known not to say “no” to King Aerys. That Brandon tried to, unwilling to let his sister be made a second wife to Prince Rhaegar despite most knowing he was moving to unseat his father and would soon be King himself, nearly got him killed. Would have, if Rhaenys’ father had taken even another moon to make his move.

Offering the heir of Winterfell back to the North had smoothed over a few of the broken edges of fealty between them, Rickard Stark asking for no other restitution since his daughter was made a Queen and she had already been with child. He’d hidden Brandon’s state, though, instead of replacing him wholly as heir, and created the current situation with his death a few years later.

Rhaenys finally turned her attention to Sansa and could understand Cregan’s amusement. The girl looked miserable, poking at her food and almost slumped in her chair, her hair in a simple braid instead of the hideous updos she had seemed to think were the height of Southron fashion (perhaps a few decades ago she would have been right, but fashion was often derived by the Queen’s taste and neither Queen Elia nor Lady Lyanna were one for such looks).

“Oh, Lady Sansa, Aemon wished for me to offer my advice to you,” Rhaenys said with false sweetness, seeing both Lyanna and Sansa tense. “The South is so very different from the North and I have much knowledge to impart.”

Her father smiled with approval, whether he believed her sincere or not, even as Lyanna slumped in her seat more than was appropriate and focused on her wine. “Lord Brandon and I have determined that Lady Sansa will first be a ward of your uncle, Prince Doran, so that she can learn more of the South in a relaxed setting.”

“How wonderful! Dorne is lovely and Prince Viserys is there, he is great friends with my little brother.”

Aemon shot her a knowing look. “It is true, Lady Sansa, Uncle Viserys and I were very close when I was younger. He will want to look out for me and mine.”

That seemed to perk Sansa up for some reason. “Will you visit, my prince?” The simpering, nearly possessive way she addressed Aemon made Rhaenys’ blood boil.

“I do not know when my next trip to Dorne will be, there are many events in the next few years that will keep me closer to home, but I certainly enjoy the Water Gardens.”

Rhaenys’ own marriage later that year would be one such event, which she certainly didn’t want the treacherous members of House Stark at. She might need to come up with others that would keep Aemon occupied with perfect excuses. Though a few of the right words to their father would likely have him overprotective of his youngest again and not letting Aemon leave even the Red Keep for a time.

Sansa pursed her lips, her dissatisfied expression near an exact copy of her mother’s, like they had tasted something sour and smelt something foul at the same time, and was not a flattering look.

Before she could continue, though, Cregan shifted topics: “I hear you’re taking a few heirs from the North down with you this time, Aemon.”

“Aye,” Aemon gave an amused smile as he mimicked Cregan’s accent with surprising skill, “Domeric and Denys, at least. I’d take you, too, if I thought you wouldn’t melt like ice in Dorne as soon as we passed the Neck.”

Cregan laughed and Rhaenys had the impression they had some inside joke that was referenced. “Those two will be good for it, Dom spent all that time in the Vale, he’s practically a Southron.” He’d raised his voice enough that the party at the next nearest table could hear and the young man in question, Ser Domeric Bolton who Rhaenys had remembered as much for his attractive features as being one of the few knights present, made what must have been a rude gesture in return.

“Don’t be mean, Creg, just because everything you can do Dom can do better.”

“Those are fighting words, princeling!”

“Are you truly challenging others for me already, my prince? We haven’t even left, yet!” Domeric called, a smile on his face that seemed at odds with how the color and shape of his eyes made them look forever cold and dangerous.

Rhaenys could not help but smile, relieved her little brother had found some friendships in their time there. The ladies had left…much to be desired, at least insofar as the ones that had come for the royal visit. She’d heard much about other ladies, ones of Bear Isle and the mountain clans that she thought would have at least pleased Obara and Elia if they were to return with her, but they had not been there to meet.

The Manderly girls were the closest to bearable, but as future Lady of the Reach she had to be careful there. And she had a fairly full contingent waiting for her back home, with all the girls in their family to choose from, whereas Aemon had only Trystane if he wished to take a Martell in, and he was a bit too young, yet.

Another reason that Rhaenys didn’t bother looking for new ladies, her cousins would tear them apart far too easily. She had barely managed to divert attention away from the last young lady at court whose reputation they’d destroyed for amusement (and because she’d insulted Queen Elia, though none would be able to trace the situation back to that).

Aemon did not have such issues, his lordlings were as demure and unassuming as her ladies were not. Of course, if she had an older sister with associations like Aegon had, perhaps she, too, would prefer to fade into the background. Certainly one Theon Greyjoy or Harry Hardying was enough for court.

She pulled her attention away from the boys, turning her attention instead to her father. Aemon had surely put on his normal puppy eyes and daddy’s girl attitude when making his suggestions, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep rewarding him, especially with Lyanna being so cold.

Let her father remember, perhaps, who his real family was, who loved him despite what a disappointment he often was.

[lives4lovesworld]

okay since @rainhadaenerys and @aegontheconquerorwithteats tags show me how misleading my post can come across;

My issue being is not that Young Griff is a 'bad person' or even remotely like Joffrey, and that everbody should see this too. My issue is that he is ALLOWED to be spoiled, sheltered and arrogant, unlike Dany.

He is ALLOWED to stress his claim (x), unlike Dany who becomes the most entitled bitch in the eyes of the fandom for the same thing. He is ALLOWED to have a claim in the first place(!), despite his more than dubious heritage. Unlike Dany, whose claim is constantly denied because some nonsense how she is Aerys's daughter and the targaryens have lost their claim and whatever by the same people who insist "Aegon VI" has the best claim.

Young Griff, despite having accomplished or proven nothing so far and only a handful of sellswords at his disposal, gets theorized to conquer Westeros, secure mighty alliances, be welcomed by the people. Unlike Daenerys, despite having proved herself throughout the entire series to be a competent conqueror with a gigantic host of diverse subgroups, AND DRAGONS, is speculated to fail spectacular at doing the same. Unlike Young Griff, her kinship to Aerys (and Rhaegar) will get her rejected.

Young Griff is ALLOWED to throw tantrums, unlike Dany. She can let the boy who spits on her gets away unscattered and excelles at playing the idiot as Kraznys mo Nakloz insults her throughout their enitre acquaintance, and still be (deliberately) mischaracterized as 'too violent' and temperamental.

Young Griff's entire campaign can be orchestrated by his "advisors" (they make his battle plans, pay his forces, reach out to others for potential alliances) and he will still be theorized to become Robb 2.0: a battle strategist prodigy. Daenerys can prove to be one as well, amasse her forces and wealth from stretch and she will still gets discredited at every turn. Every accomplishment of hers are actually her advisors', the circumstances are just too convenient, her enemies are just "too (cartoonsishly) stupid", her dragons serve her as Dues Ex Machina. While simountanastly every horrible thing happening in Essos is somehow her fault, not the slavers to actually commit the betrayals and atrocities, not nature to have the dragons behave like dragons, not Quentyn for getting himself killed in his folly of a plan.

Barristan and Quentyn Martell, good men who feared Dany could have been her "father's daughter" (x,x) (which still didn't stopped them from actively pursuing her and planning to seat her on the throne, mind you) can say multiple times she is a good queen (x, x), kind  competent (x, x) , and this can all be dismissed. But Varys, the man notorious for lying, for being known as the catalyst for “the rot in King Aerys's (TARGARYEN, Young Griff's supposed grandfather) reign” , and walking over thousand of corpses, (including Eddard Stark!) if it gets him closes to his goals, who is likely Young Griff's kin, can have one monolog in which he pretends to care about the realm's wellbeing and has Young Griff presented as the perfect Ruler with a tragic past (which we know isn't true) and this will be taken at face.

Young Griff is ALLOWED to have Tyrion (GRRM's lil self-insert) 'think of Joffrey' and still is theorized to become the "people's king", while his iconic monolog of Daenerys is either dismissed or "theorized" to be subverted. Imagine GRRM would have ever had Tyrion remotely link Daenerys to Joffrey. We would never hear the end it it.

antis really saw Young Griff and made him their avatar and disposable narrative tool in their delusional fight against Daenerys. The amount of cocky fanon clownery:

yOung GriFf is g0nna bE unIverSaLly seEn as aegon vi! hE wiLl coNquer tHis anD thAt! MarRy x! haVe y, z, k supP0rt! bE beLoVed tHat! s0lVe weSterOs' hunGer crIsis! bE jAehAEryS + aEGon CoMe aGain! daNy wIll reaCt eXaCtly liKe thE jeaLous meGalomAnIac nutcAse I aLwaY waNted Her t0 bE, wHen sHe seEs hOw tRiUmpHaNt he Is!

People legitimately canonize their own plots and HCs ft. him, thick enough to fill out TWoW and ADoS, and have the audacity to expect others to do the same.

Tyrion can literally name him a green boy, compare him to fucking Joffrey, be used as camera characters to show us how spoiled and sheltered (x) and arrogant (x) he is, and Varys's tale will still be taken at face value. A notorious liar, who dgaf about realm and has set multiple wars into actions, suddenly becomes an advocate for the people for their HC of Young Griff as the perfect Ruler only to despite Daenerys, cause that would be so sUbvErsIve.

[moonlitgleek]

Why do you want rhaegar to be struck in an arranged marriage. He was forced to be with e/ia. And he clearly didn't love that sickly woman.

Why do you want to argue that one person’s feelings are more important than other people’s lives? Or that not loving someone justifies humiliating and endangering them? Or that one’s responsibilities (including to one’s own children) are only dependent on love?

Also, fuck you.

[agentrouka-blog]

This may seem random but being new to the history of ASOIAF and not just the main books. Reading about how Aegon V had his second son betrothed to a Tully girl, before he ran off with his sister made me think. What if he went through with marrying her? How would that have changed the relationships of the Tully's with the other great houses in the main timeline? How exactly is Celia related to Catelyn? Was she an aunt? a great aunt? etc.

The betrothal was made in 237, when prince Jaehaerys was 12 years old, so I expect she would have been not significantly younger or older than him at the time. Hoster wasn't born yet, the Wiki speculates he was born 238 to 240.

Purely speculating, she might have been the eldest daughter of Hoster's father, making her Hoster's sister instead of Hoster's aunt. It would be more fitting to offer a prince the eldest daughter of a Lord Paramount than a younger daughter so late born that her eldest brother was already about to have a son. She could have been a little younger than Jaehaerys, making the age difference to Hoster and their younger brother Brynden significant but not impossible. She might have been heir to Riverrun at the time before her brothers were born, just like Catelyn was. Quite a match. Worthy of a prince.

Or she was Hoster's aunt, baby sister to his unnamed father, who may have been the Lord Tully to agree to the match at the time. Also a decently prestigious bride.

Either way, by canon events, she is now long dead, perhaps without issue, since there is no sign of a family connection anywhere.

If the match had gone through, she would have been queen in Shaera's place, eventually. Instead of Aerys and Rhaella marrying each other, there would have been half-Tully Targaryens likely marrying outside the family. It would have further elevated the importance of House Tully, definitely stabilized the rule of House Targaryen, perhaps preventing Aegon V from engaging in the folly of Summerhall. It would have prevented any interest of the Tullys in joining a block of Targaryen opponents ("STAB Alliance"). It's unlikely that Robert's Rebellion would have ever happened the way it did.

Unless Jaehaerys decided to mistreat his wife Celia, of course. Given that he was sufficiently motivated to break the betrothal because he believed in Targaryen incest practices and was also in love with his sister, it's quite possible he could have been a horrible husband to her, making him a version of Rhaegar and putting the Riverlands in a similar position to Dorne. It's hard to say.

[thelustybraavosimaid]

The Tale of the Blue Winter Rose, Rhaelya, and Jonerys

The story of Bael the Bard and the tale of the blue rose and why it was specifically mentioned to Jon is because it is a chance for him to learn the story of his parents, Lyanna and Rhaegar.

"Who was your mother?"

"Some woman. Most of them are." Someone had said that to him once. He did not remember who.

She smiled again, a flash of white teeth. "And she never sung you the song o' the winter rose?" (Jon VI, ACoK)

To go off on a small tangent, this is a very similar kind of foreshadowing that George had woven in before, specifically with Jon in his conversation with Jeor, when discussing Maester Aemon (aka, discussing Jon's family):

"Yes and no. First they offered it, quietly, to Aemon. And quietly he refused. The gods meant for him to serve, not to rule, he told them. He had sworn a vow and would not break it, though the High Septon himself offered to absolve him. Well, no sane man wanted any blood of Aerion's on the throne, and Daeron's girl was a lackwit besides being female, so they had no choice but to turn to Aemon's younger brother—Aegon, the Fifth of His Name. Aegon the Unlikely, they called him, born the fourth son of a fourth son. Aemon knew, and rightly, that if he remained at court those who disliked his brother's rule would seek to use him, so he came to the Wall. And here he has remained, while his brother and his brother's son and his son each reigned and died in turn, until Jaime Lannister put an end to the line of the Dragonkings."

"King," croaked the raven. The bird flapped across the solar to land on Mormont's shoulder. "King," it said again, strutting back and forth.

"He likes that word," Jon said, smiling.

"An easy word to say. An easy word to like."

"King," the bird said again.

"I think he means for you to have a crown, my lord."

"The realm has three kings already, and that's two too many for my liking." Mormont stroked the raven under the beak with a finger, but all the while his eyes never left Jon Snow.

It made him feel odd. (Jon I, ACoK)

The tale in itself is doubly tied to Jon because, as we know well, Lyanna is tied to flowers, specifically blue winter roses.

Last of all, he came to the tomb where his father slept, with Brandon and Lyanna beside him. "Promise me, Ned," Lyanna's statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood. (Eddard XIII, AGoT)

--

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses. (Eddard XV, AGoT)

--

"Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. So the Stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o' the winter roses be plucked for the singer's payment. And so it was done. But when morning come, the singer had vanished...and so had Lord Brandon's maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain." (Jon VI, ACoK)

--

Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost. (Eddard XV, AGoT)

The "Stark maiden" in the story is Lyanna, chosen by Rhaegar:

If he loved you, he would come and carry you off at swordpoint, as Rhaegar carried off his northern girl, the girl in her insisted, but the queen knew that was folly. (Daenerys VII, ADwD)

Both the winter rose from the story and Lyanna are fair:

"North or south, singers always find a ready welcome, so Bael ate at Lord Stark's own table, and played for the lord in his high seat until half the night was gone. The old songs he played, and new ones he'd made himself, and he played and sang so well that when he was done, the lord offered to let him name his own reward. 'All I ask is a flower,' Bael answered, 'the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o' Winterfell.'" (Jon VI, ACoK)

--

"And there's my grandfather, Lord Rickard, who was beheaded by Mad King Aerys. His daughter Lyanna and his son Brandon are in the tombs beside him. Not me, another Brandon, my father's brother. They're not supposed to have statues, that's only for the lords and the kings, but my father loved them so much he had them done."

"The maid's a fair one," Osha said. (Bran VII, AGoT)

The room Lyanna was in also smelled of blood and roses, and she had winter roses in her hands when she died, but when they spilled from her palm, they were black, dead. Like her.

Not my mother, Jon thought stubbornly. He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her. Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind. (Jon III, AGoT)

As Lyanna's son, Jon is, in Daenerys' vision in the House of the Undying, the blue flower growing in a chink of ice (becoming LC?) at the wall (the literal Wall), filling the air with sweetness, and Dany will be his bride, the bride of fire:

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness...mother of dragons, bride of fire... (Daenerys IV, ACoK)

This is not tied to Sansa or Jonsa.

Menstruation is called flowering, but Sansa was not menstruating in winter time. It also would make no literary sense for a vision specifically for Daenerys, who was in the House of the Undying, and also seeing said blue flower growing in the ice, and also as the bride of fire, to not be connected to her in some way.

Petyr being called Baelish is also not a tie to Jonsa, either, because it is Bael the Bard who steals and impregnates the Winter Rose, and she loved him so much that she had begotten him a son.

That would be foreshadowing for Petyr/Sansa, not Jon/Sansa.

"No. They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneath the castle. The maid loved Bael so dearly she bore him a son, the song says...though if truth be told, all the maids love Bael in them songs he wrote. Be that as it may, what's certain is that Bael left the child in payment for the rose he'd plucked unasked, and that the boy grew to be the next Lord Stark. So there it is—you have Bael's blood in you, same as me." (Jon VI, ACoK)

Instead of being the next Lord Stark like in the Bael the Bard story, Jon would be the next King in the North, as per Robb's will:

"...and dead. No one has seen or heard of Arya since they cut Father's head off. Why do you lie to yourself? Arya's gone, the same as Bran and Rickon, and they'll kill Sansa too once the dwarf gets a child from her. Jon is the only brother that remains to me. Should I die without issue, I want him to succeed me as King in the North. I had hoped you would support my choice." (Catelyn V, ASoS)

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

AFFC: Jaime I (Chapter 8)

Excuse me, where is Alayne?

"Allow me to stand tonight in your stead," Ser Loras offered. "He was not your father." You did not kill him. I did. Tyrion may have loosed the crossbow bolt that slew him, but I loosed Tyrion. "Leave me."

[...]

He never said he meant to kill our father. If he had, I would have stopped him. Then I would be the kinslayer, not him.

Bad news, you'll both slay kin, only in vastly different ways.

Remember when I didn't understand this?

The height of folly was reached when a plump fool came capering out in gold-painted tin with a cloth lion's head, and chased a dwarf around the tables, whacking him over the head with a bladder. Finally King Renly demanded to know why he was beating his brother. "Why, Your Grace, I'm the Kinslayer," the fool said.

"It's Kingslayer, fool of a fool," Renly said, and the hall rang with laughter. - Catelyn II, ACOK

How funny.

Anyway, at least he realizes he's partly responsible for Tywin's murder.

+.+.+

And then he was alone again with his lord father, amongst the candles and the crystals and the sickly sweet smell of death.

Do the Daenerys fans read these books with their eyes closed?

+.+.+

Unless my brother murdered Varys too, and left his corpse to rot beneath the castle. Down there, it might be years before his bones were found. 

Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm.

Tyrion hung back a moment. Varys had already betrayed him once. Who knew what game the eunuch was playing? And what better place to murder a man than down in the darkness, in a place that no one knew existed? His body might never be found. - Tyrion XI, ASOS

I don't know if this is about Varys, or the twins.

+.+.+

Jaime had led a dozen guards below, with torches and ropes and lanterns. For hours they had groped through twisting passages, narrow crawl spaces, hidden doors, secret steps, and shafts that plunged down into utter blackness. Seldom had he felt so utterly a cripple. A man takes much for granted when he has two hands. Ladders, for an instance. Even crawling did not come easy; not for nought do they speak of hands and knees. Nor could he hold a torch and climb, as others could.

Jaime's not going to be able to escape the bowels. Got it.

+.+.+

And all for naught. They found only darkness, dust, and rats. And dragons, lurking down below. 

+.+.+

He remembered the sullen orange glow of the coals in the iron dragon's mouth. The brazier warmed a chamber at the bottom of a shaft where half a dozen tunnels met. On the floor he'd found a scuffed mosaic of the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen done in tiles of black and red. I know you, Kingslayer, the beast seemed to be saying. I have been here all the time, waiting for you to come to me. And it seemed to Jaime that he knew that voice, the iron tones that had once belonged to Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone.

A dragon waiting for Jaime at the bottom of the Red Keep is not helping my confusion regarding the location.

+.+.+

The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate. "Your Grace," Jaime had pleaded, "let Darry stay to guard the king this once, or Ser Barristan. Their cloaks are as white as mine."

Prince Rhaegar shook his head. "My royal sire fears your father more than he does our cousin Robert. He wants you close, so Lord Tywin cannot harm him. I dare not take that crutch away from him at such an hour."

Is that another Targaryen talent? Ensuring you're surrounded by people (Lannisters) who will betray you?

+.+.+

Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime's shoulder. "When this battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but . . . well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return."

Those were the last words Rhaegar Targaryen ever spoke to him. 

Then what happened? Hahahahaha.

A council! He means to call a council.

+.+.+

It was queer, but he felt no grief. Where are my tears? Where is my rage? Jaime Lannister had never lacked for rage. "Father," he told the corpse, "it was you who told me that tears were a mark of weakness in a man, so you cannot expect that I should cry for you."

If he's feeling no anger or grief, why is he so insistent on standing vigil for seven days, and seven nights?

Because Jaime Lannister cares a lot about appearance.

+.+.+

Without his beard, Pycelle looked not only old, but feeble. Shaving him was the cruelest thing Tyrion could have done, thought Jaime, who knew what it was to lose a part of yourself, the part that made you who you were. 

That right there might be more missing tongue foreshadowing.

I'm still not a believer, but I'll continue to include it.

+.+.+

"Ser Jaime, I have seen terrible things in my time," the old man said. "Wars, battles, murders most foul . . . I was a boy in Oldtown when the grey plague took half the city and three-quarters of the Citadel. Lord Hightower burned every ship in port, closed the gates, and commanded his guards to slay all those who tried to flee, be they men, women, or babes in arms. They killed him when the plague had run its course. On the very day he reopened the port, they dragged him from his horse and slit his throat, and his young son's as well. To this day the ignorant in Oldtown will spit at the sound of his name, but Quenton Hightower did what was needed. Your father was that sort of man as well. A man who did what was needed."

Well, I know one thing, we're not reading this random story for no reason.

A part of me believes Aegon won't engage with King's Landing, instead he'll go to Dorne + the Reach after the stormlands.

Jon Connington and his greyscale being near Oldtown fits with what the show tried to do with Jorah Mormont.

+.+.+

It was my work, not his, Jaime almost told her. Instead he had promised to find what answers he could from the chief undergaoler, a bentback old man named Rennifer Longwaters.

"I see you wonder, what sort of name is that?" the man had cackled when Jaime went to question him. "It is an old name, 'tis true. I am not one to boast, but there is royal blood in my veins. I am descended from a princess. My father told me the tale when I was a tad of a lad." Longwaters had not been a tad of a lad for many a year, to judge from his spotted head and the white hairs growing from his chin. "She was the fairest treasure of the Maidenvault. Lord Oakenfist the great admiral lost his heart to her, though he was married to another. She gave their son the bastard name of 'Waters' in honor of his father, and he grew to be a great knight, as did his own son, who put the 'Long' before the 'Waters' so men might know that he was not basely born himself. So I have a little dragon in me."

The mystery is solved! Daenerys, Rennifer Longwaters, and Brown Ben Plumm are the three heads of the dragon.

I understand this story gets more developed in the side books (and I am unfamiliar with it), but if you only read the above, it would be hard to not see hints of Rhaegar, Lyanna, and Jon Snow.

+.+.+

Mention that royal blood once more and I may spill some of it, thought Jaime. "Who saw these reports?"

"Certain of them went to the master of coin, others to the master of whisperers. All to the chief gaoler and the King's Justice. It has always been so in the dungeons." Longwaters scratched his nose. "Rugen was here when need be, my lord. That must be said. The black cells are little used. Before your lordship's little brother was sent down, we had Grand Maester Pycelle for a time, and before him Lord Stark the traitor. There were three others, common men, but Lord Stark gave them to the Night's Watch. I did not think it good to free those three, but the papers were in proper order. I made note of that in a report as well, you may be certain of it."

The previous master of coin is subtly mentioned, but don't think for one second that will help Jaime.

Ned sent Rorge, Biter, and Jaqen to the Night's Watch. I bet he wishes he could take that one back, hahaha.

+.+.+

"Tell me of the two gaolers who went to sleep."

"Gaolers?" Longwaters sniffed. "Those were no gaolers. They were merely turnkeys. The crown pays wages for twenty turnkeys, my lord, a full score, but during my time we have never had more than twelve. We are supposed to have six undergaolers as well, two on each level, but there are only the three."

[...]

Six prisoners, Jaime thought sourly, while we pay wages for twenty turnkeys, six undergaolers, a chief undergaoler, a gaoler, and a King's Justice.

Is Jaime going to ask himself who's collecting those wages if the positions aren't filled?

No, of course not, every dumb Lannister must have a Littlefinger blind spot. It's a prerequisite.

+.+.+

"I want to question these two turnkeys."

[...]

But, ser, if I may be so bold, I do not think them like to answer. They are dead, my lord."

Jaime frees Tyrion, and four people die for it, including his father. That's what a redemption arc looks like, right?

The three children continue to honour Tywin's legacy by always making everything worse.

+.+.+

Ser Osmund shrugged. "They won't be missed. I'll wager they was part of it, along with the one who's gone missing."

No, Jaime could have told him. Varys dosed their wine to make them sleep. 

[...]

"If I had a suspicious nature I might wonder why you were in such haste to make certain these two were never put to the question. Did you need to silence them to conceal your own part in this?"

"Us?" Kettleblack choked on that. "All we done was what the queen commanded. On my word as your Sworn Brother."

The gall to accuse others of being involved. Lol

Never change, Jaime Lannister.

+.+.+

The sun had set for good and all. The stench of death was growing stronger, despite the scented candles. The smell reminded Jaime Lannister of the pass below the Golden Tooth, where he had won a glorious victory in the first days of the war. On the morning after the battle, the crows had feasted on victors and vanquished alike, as once they had feasted on Rhaegar Targaryen after the Trident. How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king?

Everyone sit back and enjoy the thought of birds eating Rhaegar Targaryen.

A crow dining upon a king, eh? Is that Castle Black mutiny foreshadowing or Bloodraven vs. Bran foreshadowing?

+.+.+

There were crows circling the seven towers and great dome of Baelor's Sept even now, Jaime suspected, their black wings beating against the night air as they searched for a way inside. Every crow in the Seven Kingdoms should pay homage to you, Father. From Castamere to the Blackwater, you fed them well.

Are you sure they're not eagles?

+.+.+

A woman stood before him.

It is raining again, he thought when he saw how wet she was. The water was trickling down her cloak to puddle round her feet. How did she get here? I never heard her enter. She was dressed like a tavern wench in a heavy roughspun cloak, badly dyed in mottled browns and fraying at the hem. A hood concealed her face, but he could see the candles dancing in the green pools of her eyes, and when she moved he knew her.

"Cersei." He spoke slowly, like a man waking from a dream, still wondering where he was. "What hour is it?"

"The hour of the wolf." His sister lowered her hood, and made a face. "The drowned wolf, perhaps." She smiled for him, so sweetly. 

Look, a hooded drowned wolf is visiting Jaime!

Run, bitch.

+.+.+

"Jaime, Kevan has refused me. He will not serve as Hand, he . . . he knows about us. He said as much."

"Refused?" That surprised him. "How could he know? He will have read what Stannis wrote, but there is no . . ."

HOW COULD HE NOT?

+.+.+

She wants something of me. "Why are you here, at this hour? What would you have of me?" His last word echoed up and down the sept, mememememememememememe, fading to a whisper. For a moment he dared to hope that all she wanted was the comfort of his arms.

[...]

"Be my Hand," she pleaded, "and we'll rule the Seven Kingdoms together, like a king and his queen."

"You were Robert's queen. And yet you won't be mine."

"I would, if I dared. But our son—"

Couldn't help but notice you both want something from the other.

+.+.+

Jaime could smell the fear on her, even through the rank stench of the corpse. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her, to bury his face in her golden curls and promise her that no one would ever hurt her . . . not here, he thought, not here in front of the gods, and Father. "No," he said. "I cannot. Will not."

Yeah, who would ever have sex in a church in front of a dead family member?

+.+.+

Dawn caught Jaime almost unawares. As the glass in the dome began to lighten, suddenly there were rainbows shimmering off the walls and floors and pillars, bathing Lord Tywin's corpse in a haze of many-colored light. The King's Hand was rotting visibly. His face had taken on a greenish tinge, and his eyes were deeply sunken, two black pits. Fissures had opened in his cheeks, and a foul white fluid was seeping through the joints of his splendid gold-and-crimson armor to pool beneath his body.

Aww, Tywin got his rainbow!

+.+.+

Shortly after, a flock of novices came swinging censers, and the air grew so thick with incense that the bier seemed cloaked in smoke. All the rainbows vanished in that perfumed mist, yet the stench persisted, a sweet rotten smell that made Jaime want to gag.

Do the Daenerys fans read these books with their eyes closed?

+.+.+

". . . she's been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know . . ."

Jaime had seen Kettleblack naked in the bathhouse, had seen the black hair on his chest, and the coarser thatch between his legs. He pictured that chest pressed against his sister's, that hair scratching the soft skin of her breasts. She would not do that. The Imp lied. Spun gold and black wire tangled, sweaty. Kettleblack's narrow cheeks clenching each time he thrust. Jaime could hear his sister moan. No. A lie.

Listen, I love when the twins torture each other, but I genuinely feel bad for him on this one.

+.+.+

Red-eyed and pale, Cersei climbed the steps to kneel above their father, drawing Tommen down beside her. The boy recoiled at the sight, but his mother seized his wrist before he could pull away. "Pray," she whispered, and Tommen tried. But he was only eight and Lord Tywin was a horror. One desperate breath of air, then the king began to sob. "Stop that!" Cersei said. Tommen turned his head and doubled over, retching. His crown fell off and rolled across the marble floor. His mother pulled back in disgust, and all at once the king was running for the doors, as fast as his eight-year-old legs could carry him.

Did we need two chapters dedicated to Tywin's funeral? Absolutely not, but I still enjoyed every word.

+.+.+

"I wasn't scared," the boy insisted. "The smell made me sick. Didn't it make you sick? How could you bear it, Uncle, ser?"

[...]

"The world is full of horrors, Tommen. You can fight them, or laugh at them, or look without seeing . . . go away inside."

Tommen considered that. "I . . . I used to go away inside sometimes," he confessed, "when Joffy . . ."

"Joffrey." Cersei stood over them, the wind whipping her skirts around her legs. "Your brother's name was Joffrey. He would never have shamed me so."

You don't want to be reading that so close to the introduction of Aeron Dam-phair's rusted iron hinges.

+.+.+

The queen drew Tommen to her side. Mace Tyrell bowed before them. "His Grace is not unwell, I hope?"

"The king was overwhelmed by grief," said Cersei.

"As are we all. If there is aught that I can do . . ."

High above, a crow screamed loudly. He was perched on the statue of King Baelor, shitting on his holy head. "There is much and more you can do for Tommen, my lord," Jaime said. "Perhaps you would do Her Grace the honor of supping with her, after the evening services?"

[...]

But when Tyrell had taken his leave and Tommen had been sent off with Ser Addam Marbrand, she turned on Jaime angrily. "Are you drunk or dreaming, ser? Pray tell, why am I having supper with that grasping fool and his puerile wife?" A gust of wind stirred her golden hair. "I will not name him Hand, if that's what—"

Is. . . is someone watching? Is. . . is Mace Tyrell full of shit?

+.+.+

"You need Tyrell," Jaime broke in, "but not here. Ask him to capture Storm's End for Tommen. Flatter him, and tell him you need him in the field, to replace Father. Mace fancies himself a mighty warrior. Either he will deliver Storm's End to you, or he will muck it up and look a fool. Either way, you win."

"Storm's End?" Cersei looked thoughtful. "Yes, but . . . Lord Tyrell has made it tediously plain that he will not leave King's Landing till Tommen marries Margaery."

Jaime sighed. "Then let them wed. It will be years before Tommen is old enough to consummate the marriage. And until he does, the union can always be set aside. Give Tyrell his wedding and send him off to play at war."

The union can always be set aside? Hmmm.

I was blown away to find people in this fandom applauding Jaime for this clever suggestion. I thought we all understood everything this family does badly backfires? I guess not.

Mace Tyrell will leave for Storm's End, but he'll bring Mathis Rowan with him, who has just been removed from the small council by Cersei. Mace will then return to King's Landing once Margaery is imprisoned, leaving Rowan and his forces at Storm's End to lay siege. Aegon VI and the Golden Company now approach.

Mathis Rowan.

"Prince Doran comes at my son's invitation," Lord Tywin said calmly, "not only to join in our celebration, but to claim his seat on this council, and the justice Robert denied him for the murder of his sister Elia and her children."

Tyrion watched the faces of the Lords Tyrell, Redwyne, and Rowan, wondering if any of the three would be bold enough to say, "But Lord Tywin, wasn't it you who presented the bodies to Robert, all wrapped up in Lannister cloaks?" None of them did, but it was there on their faces all the same. Redwyne does not give a fig, he thought, but Rowan looks fit to gag. - Tyrion III, ASOS

That Mathis Rowan.

I will not pretend to know what's going to happen in the story (ha, lies), but I will say, I would not want a spurned Mathis Rowan anywhere near King Aegon Targaryen while a Cersei of House Lannister targets Tyrells in King's Landing, and Tommen patiently waits for his death.

Good idea in theory Jaime, but the chess pieces (Friends in the Reach) are not placed where you want them.

+.+.+

A wary smile crept across his sister's face. "Even sieges have their dangers," she murmured. "Why, our Lord of Highgarden might even lose his life in such a venture."

"There is that risk," conceded Jaime. "Especially if his patience runs thin this time, and he elects to storm the gate."

Cersei gave him a lingering look. "You know," she said, "for a moment you sounded quite like Father."

Is that supposed to a compliment?

It's like when someone compares Daenerys to Rhaegar.

Final thoughts:

Do you have any idea how hard it would be to manage a ranking of the dumbest Lannisters?

Poor Kevan.

-> return to menu <-

[selfishwomenareright]

DANY MONTH - OCTOBER 2021

Day 23: Wants and needs vs duty and sacrifices.

“And if he does not fail? What will Your Grace do then?”

“Her duty.” The word felt cold upon her tongue. “You saw my brother Rhaegar wed. Tell me, did he wed for love or duty?”

The old knight hesitated. “Princess Elia was a good woman, Your Grace. She was kind and clever, with a gentle heart and a sweet wit. I know the prince was very fond of her.”

Fond, thought Dany. The word spoke volumes. I could become fond of Hizdahr zo Loraq, in time. Perhaps.

***

How beautiful, the queen tried to tell herself, but inside her was some foolish little girl who could not help but look about for Daario. If he loved you, he would come and carry you off at swordpoint, as Rhaegar carried off his northern girl, the girl in her insisted, but the queen knew that was folly.

[ode-to-fury]

Winter Thorns and Iron Crowns Pt 14

Summary: Tower of Joy scene and aftermath

Pairings: Stannis Baratheon x reader, Arthur Dayne x reader

Disclaimer: I’m so sorry, but I really love this chapter. Again, there’s sensitive content so be careful.

Oswell was sharpening his sword with a whetstone as Ned and Y/n rode up with the others. Hiwland Reed rode on Ned’s right hand. The three knights stood at their approach and faced them, though none drew weapons, allowing the Northerners to come closer.

Ser Oswell stood to the left, Gerold in the middle, and Arthur to the right. He had a sad smile on his perfect lips, and Y/n’s heart ached to see him. The Dornish sun had darkened his skin, and his piercing violet eyes held a weariness she had never before seen in them.

They did not find her face.

“I looked for you on the Trident,” Ned said, taking a step forward. He face Arthur as if they were having a conversation at a feast.

“We were not there,” Gerold answered in his stead.

“Woe to the Usurper if we had been,” Oswell supplied. Y/n’s hand tightened on the hilt of her sword, though she knew it would be folly to draw now.

“When King’s Landing fell, Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were,” she said instead. Ned put a hand out to stop her stepping up next to him, and she ground her teeth in annoyance. She scowled at Arthur, daring him to look at her, but his eyes remained fixed on Ned’s face.

“Far away,” Gerold’s deep voice drew her attention, “Or Aerys would yet sit on the Iron Throne and our false brother would burn in seven hells.”

“I came down on Storm’s End to lift the siege,” Ned told them, “and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them.”

Her head whipped to Arthur when he spoke, and his voice broke her heart in two.

“Our knees do not bend easily,” said ser Arthur Dayne of the Kingsguard, and there was no trace of softness or humour in his voice.

“Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him,” Ned was still speaking, though she had no idea why.

“Ser Willem is a good man and true,” said Oswell. “But not of the Kingsguard,” Gerold pointed out. “The Kingsguard does not flee.”

“Then or now,” Arthur said, hard.

“Don’t do this, Arthur,” Y/n gasped out, even as the seven men Ned had brought moved up next to him, because she knew no words could change the paths the two of them now walked.

At the sound of his name his head jerked toward her, and their eyes locked, and the pain she saw reflected in them hurt worse than Rhaegar’s wound, than her broken ribs.

She was still weak from the wound. The stitches Maester Cressen had given her had stayed put this time, but she could barely move, and her head spun when she stood next to Ned. Her sword was too heavy for her arms, not to mention the three broken ribs.

“Let us through to Lyanna,” she tried, desperately. No matter the hurt, the betrayal, no matter what he had done, she cared for him still. Her anger vanished in the face of what must be done.

But it was Lyanna in that tower, whether she had chosen to go or no. It was Lyanna.

His eyes glittered as he looked at her, and there was no mirth in them, no victory. Only despair, only pain.

Yet the curtains were open, the players had taken the stage.

Now the play must commence.

He made no move to draw his sword, but his stance spoke of stone, of danger.

“My king commanded me to watch the tower,” he said, and the faint hurt in his voice almost broke her. “My honour binds me.”

“Damn your honour,” she hissed, wanting to cry and rage and scream, but all of it turned to ice in her chest as Ned stepped in front of her, between them.

“I loved you, coward,” she said over her brother’s shoulder.

“I love you still,” was his pained reply.

That was too much, unfair even.

“Don’t,” she said, and she clutched her side as the breathing made her ribs ache, as her eyes burned and her heart cracked again and again and again, “Don’t you dare call this love.”

He did not answer her.

“Let us through to my sister,” Ned said. His own sword was drawn, and his tone was low and dangerous.

“We swore a vow,” Gerold explained.

“And now it begins,” Arthur said, and took a step forward. Her knight was gone. He donned his helm, white like the rest of his kingsguard armour, and drew Dawn. The sword glittered with starfire in the Dornish sun.

“No,” Ned said, and he took a step forward as well. “Now it ends.”

The men came together with a ring of steel.

“Go,” he had said to her softly before they arrived. “We will draw their attention. Get Lyanna and leave, and do not stop, not for anything.”

She had heard the implication in his words, and swallowed down bile as she nodded.

One of them will be dead when this ends, and I can do nothing.

Even if she had not broken her ribs, or if Rhaegar had not injured her, she’d be no match for Arthur. Not now, not ever.

So instead she ran, and trusted that Ned could hold them long enough for her to find Lyanna and escape.

She ran even harder, racing for the stairs, knowing she didn’t have time to waste.

Up, up and up she went, her back was burning, and every breath felt like being pounded in the chest by Robert’s hammer, but she dare not slow, not now, not when she was so close.

There were no guards in the tower, so she did not need to unsheathe her sword.

Where are you, Lya?

As if in answer, a low, pained moan sounded from a doorway to her left, and she sprinted down there, bursting into the room to see-

“No,” she whispered.

She rushed forward and caught her sister’s hand, sitting down on the bed where Lyanna lay, uncovered, and drenched in sweat. The sweat was the least of it, however. Lyanna was pale, shaking, and the sheets between her legs were soaked in blood that ran down her thighs.

Too much blood, she thought, horrified. Too much.

All thoughts of escape left her mind at once.

The wetnurse Rheagar had left with her had jumped away at Y/n’s entrance. Y/n hardly saw her.

She brushed the hair that stuck to Lyanna’s sweating forehead back, and her fingers came back slick with her sister’s sweat.

“Y/n?” Lyanna opened blurry eyes and looked up at her. Slowly, a tired smile spread over her face.

“Hush,” Y/n said. She bit her lip to stop it from trembling. “Hush, it’s alright now.”

She swept her hand over Lyanna’s hair, again and again and again, like it would do something.

“I’m here now.”

Lyanna’s hand squeezed hers.

“Where is...” her sister trailed of, took a deep breath and started again.

“Where is Rheagar?”

“Dead,” Y/n whispered. “Robert killed him.”

“Good.”

She smiled again, and closed her eyes. Y/n’s shoulders shook with the force of her sob, and her ribs ached and burned with every breath, but she barely felt the pain.

“Just a little longer, Lya,” she managed softly, trying to stay calm, trying to convince herself. “Ned is right outside, and when he gets here, we will be together. We’ll go home.”

She choked on the word. Home.

She wanted it so badly it hurt more than anything else that had happened to her. To ride out with Ned and Lyanna and ride straight up North to Winterfell.

“We can go ride horses in Barrowton,” she said, ceasing stroking Lyanna’s hair only long enough to wipe the tears and snot from her face with the back of a shaking hand, “And run around in the Wolfswood. Do you remember Barrowton, Lya? All the rolling hills and little streams?”

Lyanna nodded, and Y/n saw a small tear leak out of her closed eye as well. It rolled down her cheek and joined the sweat beaded on her neck.

“I remember,” her voice was scarce more than a whisper. “The wolfswood too. You would always get yelled at for wandering off.”

Another sob ripped through Y/n.

“My son,” Lyanna said, and she suddenly opened her eyes. “Y/n, you must take my son North. Take him to Winterfell, Barrowton, everywhere, you must.”

She squeezed Y/n’s hand with a savage strength.

“You’ll show him yourself, Lya,” she said, but her voice shook too much, her hand stroking Lyanna’s hair moved too quickly. “You’ll show him yourself, and he’ll grow up and be just as strong as Brandon. Ned is almost here.”

Another tear rolled from Lyanna’s eyes.

“No,” Y/n said, tears coming in earnest now, her vision blurring. “No, no don’t leave me. You can’t leave me. You’re supposed to be my big sister. Don’t leave me.”

The last was a mix of sobs and words, and Y/n did not know who she was pleading with anymore.

Old gods, please. Please don’t take her from me as well. Please.

And then suddenly Ned was there, and Lyanna was gesturing for the wetnurse to hand him the babe.

“Take him North,” she said to them. “Promise me you will take him North. Promise me, Ned.”

Sobs wracked Y/n as Ned nodded, and he was crying as well as he held the small baby. He had a thick head of brown hair, just like Benjen had had, and grey eyes that sparkled slightly, Lyanna’s eyes.

And then Lyanna Stark took one last look at the both of them, and breathed her last.

She did not know how long they stayed there. How long she cried for.

We were supposed to stay together. That’s what twins are for.

It was Howland Reed that found them. Howland Reed that took Ned’s hand from Lyanna’s and led him and the wetnurse outside. Howland Reed that took the child.

Y/n took a look at the babe in his arms, but her stomach clenched with rage, and she looked away again.

“We must take her bones north,” Ned said thickly as they walked outside, “to lie beside father and Brandon.” He was making plans to avoid his grief, she knew. She was so deeply in her grief she could not avoid it if she tried.

Outside, it was carnage. Six northern lords lay, staring at the sky unseeing, in pools of blood already soaking into the Dornish sands.

In the midst of three of them...

She ran forward, but felt her knees buckle before she reached him. Already the sobs had returned full force. The last paces she crawled on hands and knees until she reached his side, not feeling the sands scorch her palms.

Her vision was so blurred from tears that she could not see his face as she lifted off his helm and took his head in her lap. She screamed, so loud and long she thought she must have torn something. Her hands shook as she held Arthur Dayne’s corpse, white armour glinting in the sun, white cape made red by his own blood. She rocked him back and forth like he was merely sleeping, like he would wake up in a few moments and make some jest about her dramatics.

She felt Ned’s arms around her, but could not open her eyes to look at him.

“It’s alright,” he said soothingly. “It’s alright, I’m here.”

It isn’t alright, she wanted to say, I loved him, Ned. I loved him, and it wasn’t enough to save him. Nothing is alright.

The words lodged in her throat, however, and all she could do was cry until she had no more tears to cry.

“Y/n,” he said eventually, “We must leave. We promised we would take the babe North.”

She took a deep breath, wiping her eyes. Rage, sudden, blinding, dried her tears as much as was possible.

She stood shakily, and looked at the bundle of cloth that Howland Reed held in his arms, unsure.

Everyone she’d loved, everyone she’d cared about, including two sweet children not much older than this, had died so this child could be born?

“We do not have to take him North,” she said softly. Ned took a step back from her, and she felt him tense.

“I gave her my word,” he said.

The word of Ned the Lord, she thought bitterly.

“He is a child,” Ned said.

She looked back at the child.

Lyanna’s eyes.

“Then take him, Ned,” she finally said. This child was all she had left of all of them. Lyanna, Rhaegar, Arthur, even Elia. All she had left of any of it.

“Please,” she said. “Take him, care for him- “

“You’re not coming home.”

She looked at her feet.

“Winterfell has never been my home. Not like it was yours, or Brandon’s.”

When she glanced up at him, he was still resigned. That is how he had gone through this war, with resignation. Before Lyanna’s death, she had not known she’d made a decision.

“My place is here,” she said. “I can do more good in King’s Landing than in Winterfell.”

She didn’t add that she could not go back. Would not. If she went back, she would have to face Winterfell and know, every second of her life, that Lyanna and Brandon and her father were dead. Never again would she laugh with them, or see them, or hold them. Winterfell would be full of ghosts.

King’s Landing as well, but here there were living too. Robert, Jon, Jaime, Ashara.

Stannis, her heart whispered, even as it clenched with guilt for the corpse at her feet.

She helped Ned and Howland build cairns for his men.

“Go North,” she told Ned. “Take Lyanna home to lie beside father. Take the boy, raise him like she would have.”

“And you?”

“I’ll return Dawn to Starfall, where she belongs, and then I’ll ride for King’s Landing, and try to keep your halfwit friend’s kingdom afloat for him.”

They looked at each other. She could not bring herself to embrace him, though she had a feeling she would not see him again for a very long time.

“Tell the wolves to remember me,” she said softly.

“They will,” he said, frowning, again that resignation in his shoulders. “The North remembers, and you are a Stark of Winterfell.”

She almost smiled, though her heart ached now more than ever, having to say goodbye to Ned as well. She frowned when she looked at the babe again.

“He will be dangerous, one day,” she said.

“But not today,” came his reply. “Today he is a babe, and he is probably hungry. Today it is spring, little sister.”

“Today it is spring,” she echoed. They nodded to each other one last time, and then he and Howland Reed mounted and headed north, taking the wetnurse with them.

She built a cairn for Arthur too, and on one of the rocks, with a knife, she carved his name.

Damn you, she thought bitterly as she mounted Tempest. She winced as she did, and clenched her teeth against the pain. Which pain, she was no longer sure.

He made his choice, the words did nothing to dispel her tears. He made his choice and he did not choose me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The guards that lord Dayne had sent to see Y/n back to King’s Landing had turned around leagues back, unwilling to go closer to the city only recently sacked by their enemy in the war. The only thing that had kept Y/n safe in their company on the ride back was respect for their lord.

She was bone-tired as the gates of King’s Landing neared, silent, broken. The city was no longer aflame, and most of the chaos seemed to have subsided. Across the Blackwater and through the King’s Gate she rode, nodding at the ragged Gold Cloaks stationed there, straight up past ruined houses and soot-stained avenues still rebuilding. In the black waters of the bay and river mouth, ships were assembling. She spotted Fury, the flagship of the Baratheon fleet, as well as many others, Queen Alysanne, Lady Johanna, Dragonfire, whilst even more were being built. “It seems they are assembling a fleet,” she whispered to herself. There were only two reasons an assault at sea was being planned, and since the Ironmen posed no immediate threat, there was just one.

Dragonstone.

Queen Rhaella was there, with prince Viserys and the remaining Targaryen loyalists.

Y/n clenched her jaw against the ache in her chest. The queen had been a second mother to her, an only mother for half of her youth. Prince Viserys had tugged on her braids and laughed in his cradle when she pulled faces at him.

Damn you, Robert, she thought bitterly. And then even more bitterly, she thought, And you, Rhaegar. I hope you’re rotting, wherever you are.

King’s Landing was silent like she could never remember it being. A few men and women looked her up and down from the mouths of alleys, but a careful flick of her cloak, allowing the setting sun to catch the hilt of her sword was enough to deter them.

Tempest snorted as they neared the Red Keep, sensing the stables were close.

“Almost there, boy,” she said as she patted his neck. Her voice sounded rough from disuse.

He knew the way home, and she barely had to pay attention to where he was going. It was a good thing, too, because her eyes and her shoulders drooped like they were weighted.

A stableboy was there the second she dismounted, taking the reins from her and leading Tempest away. Her ribs and back ached as she stood up, but she only allowed herself a small grimace of pain, because the groomsman was not the only one to greet her at the door.

“Jon,” she said, nodding at the older man. He’d come with his household guard.

“Y/n,” he said back, dipping his head slightly. “I trust you had a safe journey?”

“Take me to the Robert, Jon,” she sighed. “I want to sleep, not waste time.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stannis was listlessly picking at a dinner of bread and fruit when a knock came at his door.

“Enter.”

The door opened, and there stood a dream. She still wore travel clothes, stained from sweat and covered in dust. Her hair was in disarray and falling out of the braids holding it back from her face

“Don’t go,” was the first thing she said. Her voice was rough and dry, unnatural.

He stood up quickly, trying to ignore the beating of his heart at the sight of her. She’d startled him.

“Don’t go,” she said again, and he finally recovered enough from the shock of her presence to hear what she was saying to him.

He opened his mouth to ask what the hell she was talking about, but before he could get a word in, she took two large strides forward and threw her arms around his neck.

The shock nearly killed him.

“Gods, Stannis,” she said into his neck, “There’s barely any of you left.”

She was warm, and he’d missed her. He’d missed her so damned much it was a physical thing. The relief of seeing her, alive, unharmed, he almost sagged from it. She was too close to him; he couldn’t seem to find a breath.

“Enough,” he managed. Too hard, too cutting.

She jerked away from him, and his jaw clenched. He couldn’t make up his mind, could not think when she was so close to him.

“You don’t have to go to Dragonstone,” she said. “We can convince him to send someone else. Jon and I can convince him not to go at all- “

She stopped when he shook his head.

“I have Robert’s orders,” he said shortly. “My brother may be an imbecile at the best of times, but in this I fear he is correct. As long as there are Targaryens drawing breath his throne is in jeopardy.”

“They’re children,” she breathed out. “She was a mother to me, Stannis.”

She was searching his face for something, though he did not know what.

What he did know was that she was hurt. She flinched as she breathed, and there were small cuts over her arms and legs, and dark circles under her eyes.

In that moment, he did not want to follow Robert’s orders. He wanted, desperately, to hold her. To lie down and sleep with her in his arms. To keep her safe.

Finally, she turned away from him, walking over to the window. It was dark outside, and she would not be able to see anything but the stars, but he knew she was looking out across the bay, to Dragonstone.

“This is war, Y/n,” yet even as he said it, he hated himself. It is my duty, he reminded himself.

She took a deep, shuddering breath before turning around to face him again, her eyes bright.

“I know,” she said softly. “Gods, Stannis, I know. Is it so terrible to wish it would end?”

He shook his head, jaws clamping of their own accord. He could not find the words to soothe her, could only hope she knew him well enough to know he agreed.

I have to end it.

“Am I going to have to lose everyone I care for?” she asked softly.

“No,” he said immediately, the words tumbling out roughly before he could stop them. “Not everyone.”

Her eyes softened somewhat, and a dimple appeared in her cheek as the corner of her mouth lifted. Such a small glimpse of her smile and he felt he would be able to fly, if only she asked him to.

She nodded slightly.

“You are in pain,” he said, to distract himself from her mouth, her hair, her presence. “Allow me to summon a Maester.”

She groaned and sank down onto the window seat, wincing as she did so.

“Of course you would mother me mere seconds after I arrive,” yet there was gratitude in her eyes, or something Stannis assumed must be gratitude. “Anyone but Pycelle, please. And finish your dinner whilst we wait. You look half starved.”

He managed a small smile for her at that, and left to have a Maester summoned immediately.

[amn-elfire]

The Sun Rises Again

After her death, the Seven give Elia the task of saving her people from Rhaegar and Lyanna's folly with the opportunity to avenge her children by sending her back in time to before her betrothal with Rhaegar was ever arranged.

Or

With her prior memories still vivid in her mind, Elia sets out to prevent the events that led to the deaths of thousands while never forgetting who was at fault for the deaths of her children.

But she isn't the only one.