How come majority of the “progressive” fandom thinks elia would fight for her children’s right to the throne? Every paragraph we have on her describes her as a gentle kind totally passive women who’d wouldn’t ever show any aggression. Lest towards rhaegar and his wife and newborn- and after all the hardships he went through to finally have a family of his own. She wasn’t some ladder jumping harpy like cersei or madly arrogant like Dany who wishes to rape and pillage westros. And never a catelyn.

It’s far too early to deal with this nonsense. How do you manage to disparage
four different women in so few lines anyway? I’d be impressed if I
wasn’t so vexed by the level of vitriol in this message.

Let me get this straight. You are suggesting that progressiveness lies in a woman’s
submissiveness and passivity. In giving up her rights, in not demanding
her rights. In conceding her children’s rights because apparently that
makes her A Good Woman unlike the other ambitious no good, very bad
women who dared to aggressively pursue their ambitions or engage in
politics. Also that gentle and kind is synonyms with meek and passive
(which is simultaneously something you seem to praise and yet negatively
code. So she is good for being passive but also bad for being passive?
I’m confused.) That being gentle and kind precludes fighting for your
children’s rights, precludes being political at all. I don’t see the correlation neither do I get the point of this comparison you made.

What
even is going on here, anon? What’s the thought process behind this? Is this
some roundabout way of criticizing the status quo in Westeros? Because
if so, I find it really curious that it’s the women that are expected to
break it even though their society makes their political legacy
entirely dependent on their children. Women are subject to men’s whims
and power in Westeros to the point where having children becomes their
only way of securing their place and claiming agency but you seem to
think it’s their responsibility to break the cycle by….. becoming
weirdly apolitical in a world that’s run by politics and conceding what
political power and in turn personal agency they could claim. Instead of railing against
the patriarchy that leaves so little space for women’s autonomy, you
chose to disparage the women specifically for being political, use
gendered insults to do it and outright dehumanize them. This is not a
critique of the questionable or condemnable things that some of
these ladies did, this is an attack on them for daring to be political. For showing “aggression”. For adhering to rules their societies
shoved down their throats and forced them to play by in order to have a
voice. And you’re using Elia’s noted gentleness to simultaneously minimize her and use her as a measuring stick to condemn other women. Can you not?

The icing on the cake is that you go on to talk about the hardships that Rhaegar went through to have a family. I’m sorry but what hardships? The man already had
a family. Two children named Rhaenys and Aegon, and a wife who almost
died to bring them to life. He faced none of the difficulty it took to have
those two kids unlike Elia. Perhaps you should look closer at the reason why you discounted Elia and her children as Rhaegar’s family. No, no, it’s Lyanna and Jon who are
supposedly the family he went through hardships to finally have. Besides the fact that screw that, again I ask what hardships?
Oh it must have been so inconvenient for Rhaegar to impregnate a 14-year-old and
leave her to give birth in a desolate tower. He must have been so
inconvenienced by the death of the Starks and the civil war.
How terrible for him.
Too bad, so sad.

My heart is utterly breaking for all he had to go through.

Now please take your trolling and go somewhere else.

Would Elia and the children have survived if they had been on Dragonstone during the end of the rebellion? (I havent read the books, so I dont know why they werent there)

I honestly don’t remember which parts were included on the show so I hope I don’t confuse you. Elia and her children were not on Dragonstone because King Aerys, in his paranoia, decided that the royalists’ loss at the Trident was because Prince Lewyn Martell, one of Aerys’s Kingsguard and Elia’s uncle who took command of the Dornish troops in the Battle of the Trident, must have betrayed Rhaegar. So in the aftermath of their defeat and Rhaegar’s death, and knowing that the rebel army was advancing on the capital, Aerys sent his wife Rhaella and his son Viserys to Dragonstone but withheld Elia and the children to hold them hostages for Dorne’s loyalty.

And yes, Elia and the children would have survived if they’d been on Dragonstone. Ser Willem Darry managed to smuggle Viserys and baby Daenerys to Braavos in the original timeline as Stannis was coming to take Dragonstone. It’d be easy for Elia and her children to go with them, whether to the Free Cities or, considering Elia’s presence, to Dorne. Which creates one hell of a political knot to untangle.

How much power do legal wills have? Cersei ripped up Robert’s but Daeron honored his father’s commitments to the bastards. Rohanne would have lost her inheritance b/c of her father’s.

racefortheironthrone:

Whoops, didn’t see this. Apologies, @moonlitgleek.

Yes, wills are important. To quote myself here:

moonlitgleek:

I’m a bit out of my depth here because my knowledge of legal matters are fairly limited and I don’t have enough historical knowledge to pull from. My only source of info would be the text and the examples we have of legal wills so if you want a more comprehensive answere, you might be better served checking with someone like @racefortheironthrone for that.

As far as the text goes, we have a few examples of wills, most of which are related to matters of inheritance which makes things murkier, but they are still informative. The most famous – and infamous – will in Westerosi historiography is the one left by Aegon IV Targaryen in which he legitimized all his natural children on his deathbed. While Daeron II might not have appreciated his father’s last spiteful act and the dangers it brought, he was in no position to rescind a royal edict because to do so would be tantamount to denying that his father had the royal authority to legitimize bastards. Daeron couldn’t very well claim that he inherited his royal authority from his father (which he was very conscious to emphasize, as evidenced by him crowning himself with his father’s crown, to counter the doubts cast upon his own legitimacy by Aegon) and simultaneously try to argue that his father didn’t posses the full authority of a king. And since legitimizations can not be rescinded in general, there was nothing Daeron could do. Note that the continuance of incomes bestowed on Aegon’s natural children through Daeron’s reign was not a part of the will. Daeron II simply chose to allow them to continue, honored the betrothal Aegon made for Daemon and additionally granted him a tract of land to build a castle on, probably in the hopes that the crown’s generosity towards his newly legitimized siblings, especially Daemon who was primed for an attempted usurpation by the machinations of Aegon IV, would curtail any thoughts of rebellions.

Technically the same circumstances should have applied to Robert’s will naming Ned regent to his heir. That was a royal edict presented by the Hand of the King who, by law,
speaks for the king in his absence. In normal
circumstances, that will should have installed Ned as regent, as the king
has the authority to choose the regent and Robert chose Ned. Cersei
planned a coup though. With the exception of Barristan Selmy (who
absolutely should have fought for Ned in that throne room but, well,
Selmy tends to ascribe to a very narrow view of a Kingsguard’s duty and has shown an inability to take a stand in morally complicated situations),
and Ned and his men who were promptly arrested and slaughtered
respectively, everyone present was either Cersei’s man, in her pocket,
or in Littlefinger’s. There was no one left to enforce Robert’s will
after the showdown in the throne room and no one to challenge Cersei after she destroyed the physical will and accused Ned of treason.

Also a royal edict is Robb Stark’s will in which he legitimized Jon Snow as Jon Stark and names him his heir, but this one has its own complications.
Between the fact that we don’t know where the written will is and that
all the witnesses are in no position to do anything with the
information; that Stannis Barartheon is in the North and that he
definitely does not recognize Robb’s authority as king to accept his
legitimization of Jon as a Stark and certainly not as the next King in the
North; that Jon is dead and about to be resurrected which is bound to
change a lot of things; that there are schemes aimed to bring Sansa and
Rickon back to the North with the explicit goal to install each as the ruler of
Winterfell by their own factions which will certainly conflict with the
edicts in the will; that, oh yeah, Jon is not biologically Ned’s son
which is known by Howland Reed (currently the host of Galbart Glover and Maege Mormont, two of the
witnesses of Robb’s will), almost certainly known by Benjen Stark and is bound to be
discovered by Bran Stark, I think it’s unlikely that it will be allowed to stand.

That leaves the two non-royal wills. The first one is the will left by Wyman Webber dictating that his daughter Rohanne had to marry within two year of his death or Coldmoat would go to her cousin. In normal circumstances Lady Rohanne might have had grounds to protest the unnecessary stipulation and argue that this will undercuts normal Andal-First Men succession laws but the cousin that was designated as heir in case she failed to meet her father’s conditions was married to her overlord’s sister so Lord Rowan was more prone to enforce Wyman’s will than to set it aside. Too, Ser Lucas Inchfield, her castellan and the man Lord Webber installed to “scare off unworthy suitors”, looked to use the will to corner her into marrying him so she wouldn’t lose her inheritance. It was pretty hard for Rohanne to challenge her father’s will without support from any side.

Lastly, there is the document Ramsay Snow forced Donella Hornwood to sign naming him heir to the Hornwood. Everything about this was made under duress and so should have easily been set aside but Ser Rodrik Cassel certainly seemed to give it weight when discussing the matter with Maester Luwin, despite the maester arguing that vows made at sword point do not count. But Cassel pointed out that Roose Bolton might not agree and try to press the claim. And while Robb probably wouldn’t have allowed the Boltons to appropriate the Hornwood if he’d survived, Roose’s treachery and alliance with the Lannisters meant that Wyman Manderly did have to concede the Hornwood lands that he seized after Lady Donella’s death to the Boltons on grounds of her marriage to Ramsay and her will.

It’s also worth mentioning that GRRM identified “will of the deceased” as one of the things that makes inheritance laws vague and contradictory, which suggests that this is one of the things that gives one a claim in succession. So I don’t think there is a clear cut answer, not in practice at least. It seems that, like inheritance laws, the acceptance of a will is as dependent on politics and force of arms as it is on legality. In a strictly legal sense, the king’s last will and testament should be binding as a royal decree otherwise his heir risks his own authority. But we’ve seen royal wills destroyed or ignored for the lack of an authority to enforce it. Vows made under duress shouldn’t count, but politics could force the recognition of a claim made through those vows. I think it’s mostly a case by case thing where the presence of an authority to either enforce or override a will, the political and/or military weight of the parties involved and the recognition of the authority of the testator and their right to make such a directive all play a part in whether a will is followed or not. At least that’s as far I can tell.

“wills can be powerful sources of legitimacy – after all, Stephen may have usurped the crown from the Empress Maude (or Aegon II from Rhaenyra if you’re being picky), but Henry I’s will (or Viserys I’s) was still important enough to pull half the kingdom behind the challenger to the throne and fuel a civil war that lasted for years. A will was enough to make Richard III Lord Protector of England, and that was enough to make him King. Octavian Caesar was a rather unimpressive youngster competing against a decorated and beloved military commander in Marc Antony, but at the end of the day Caesar’s will naming him his son and heir was vital to his becoming Augustus.“

Cersei’s ripping up Robert’s will was one example among many of her norms-trangression as Queen Regent. (Hence Ser Barristan’s shocked reaction.) In the moment, she got very very lucky that the broader political community didn’t see her do that, because it would definitely have been used as a propaganda tool against her: the evil queen tore up the king’s will! Why would she do that if it didn’t name [Stannis/Renly/Insert Candidate Here] as the true heir? (Stannis would never stoop to such lengths, but no way in hell does Renly not produce a “secret copy” of the will at some point.) Maybe the rumors and satires about Robert’s “hunting accident” are true? Maybe Stannis’ letter is correct, because it explains so much!

That being said, wills are not self-executing, and the degree to which a will is binding depends very much on who has their hands on the reins of the state – it really mattered whether the Greens or the Blacks were in conrol of the Small Council when Viserys I died, or whether Cersei or Ned had purchased the loyalty of the goldlcloaks. 

However, the often-dominant nihilistic/Machiavellian perspective isn’t right either: the Greens could put a crown on Aegon II’s head but they couldn’t make the Blacks accept his coronation as legitimate; Cersei could put Joffrey on the throne by main force, but that didn’t stop most of the Seven Kingdoms rebelling against him. 

image

ramzesfics reblogged your post “Don’t you think POD was a bit abelist for refusing tyrion?” and said:

The Princess of Dorne was likely ableist. Right now, I can’t think of
a single character in the series who is entirely innocent of this. But I
feel that refusing Tyrion was not due to the ableism, which, again, I
have to stress, I believe she possessed.

I disagree that the
Princess of Dorne would not have taken the offer as an insult even if
she considered Tyrion inadequate. One doesn’t have to share the view of
their society to know what they were. If for us readers it’s clear how
ableist Westeros is, it was surely known to the woman who lived in it.
Moreover, we don’t know HOW Tywin framed the offer. He might have used
language that was clearly offensive.

While I concede that Tywin’s language was surely not polite nor do I imagine that he made any attempt to hide how deliberately offensive he meant to be, I find it hard to reconcile the belief that everyone in Westeros is ableist to varying extents (which I share btw) with the assertion that for some unspecified reason that ableism was totally not a factor in this specific situation…. that involves a disabled character that literally every
character

we’ve met – including the lesser ableist ones, the moral and decent ones – have displayed ableism against, whether intentionally or not. That does not compute. Tyrion’s disability could not ever be separated from this situation any more that Elia’s could. Neither can we acknowledge that a societal bias against disability exists in everyone, but at the same time divorce it from a character reacting to a disabled person.

Lastly, I think the Princess
of Dorne had no other option but reject the offer because the overall
ableism in Westeros would mean that the Martells would be publicly
humiliated if they accepted Tyrion. If I remember correctly, NO House
wanted him even as he grew up and it became clear that he was not, at
least, mentally deficient. And we aren’t talking of any Great Houses.
The Martells just couldn’t have him in this lovely world of Westeros. It
was a matter of standing, although I don’t think she, personally, was
this thrilled at the perspective to have Elia wait for at least 13 years
for a dwarf to grow up anyway.

In short, while I believe she was
ableist, I don’t think she ever had the option to accept and it was not
due to her ableism. She might have disliked the option partly because of
her ableism (I believe she did) but accepting was never a true
possibility and it wouldn’t have been even if she did not mind Tyrion
himself personally. Being just and objective was not her primary goal.
Ensuring a better standing for her House was.

I don’t know if this didn’t come across properly in my original post but I did note that there were perfectly rational political reasons for the Princess of Dorne to reject the match. It certainly had its significant downsides. I’m not saying that the rejection of the match is inherently ableist or that the Princess had to accept a disadvantageous match to prove she wasn’t ableist. That’s silly and plenty offensive. My point was that thinking it an outrage that Tyrion was offered as a match – which is intrinsically tied to his dwarfism – has ableist elements. That is it.

And yeah, no other House wanted Tyrion for their daughters. Ableism is also the cause of that. Hoster Tully telling Tywin that he wanted a full man for his daughter isn’t exactly ambiguous in its ableism. But other people’s ableism  doesn’t change the Princess’s own or make it more acceptable.

Did I say
“lastly”? I suppose I lied. Honestly, this ask sounds like Round 2 in
the War of Sainted Rhaegar Who Did Nothing Wrong and His Glorious
Defence. It’s been quiet here for the last two ot so days. We’ll see if
the rest of us receive similar asks, the way we did last time.

I do have my concerns about that but I’m choosing to have a conversation about a subject worth addressing over refusing to criticize someone who I do think was a caring person but also a flawed human out of concern that someone could twist my words. It’s not like they are waiting for me to justify their hate. I can’t control if someone chooses to use a critical post as “proof” that a certain character is bad. I can only try to make my point as clear as I can and hope for the best. Fingers crossed?

image

samwpmarleau

replied to your post

“Don’t you think POD was a bit abelist for refusing tyrion?”

see, idk, while that may be par for the course in westeros, it’s pretty dang hypocritical. elia wasn’t supposed to survive infancy either, and yet she did. oberyn is the one putting the ableism spin on his mother’s choices, we have nothing from her specifically. imo, she easily could have taken it as an insult for a) ableism towards her own daughter, b) the reneging on the deal she had with joanna, which tywin presumably used to be on board with,
c) the assertion that elia isn’t ~worthy~ of his precious jaime, and d)
because betrothing elia to tyrion would mean at EARLIEST elia couldn’t
have her first kid until she was 29, which is just ridiculous in
westeros’ terms.

It’s true that we haven’t heard from the Princess of Dorne herself but
Oberyn is as close to a reliable witness as we’re going to get until
GRRM deigns to give her a voice. By no means does that mean that
everything he says must be accurate, but the flow of the conversation
between him and Tyrion doesn’t seems to support that this is only
Oberyn’s spin imo. Oberyn alternates between telling his mother’s observations and giving his own conclusions in this conversation but he does frame each as they are. For example, he clearly presents his thoughts about the supposed double betrothals and the cabin on their ships as his own deduction before he shifts into telling information that his mother told him. The part about the match with Tyrion being taken as an outrage not only comes with Oberyn’s assertion that it was, it comes in-between an instance where Oberyn is recounting things his mother told him, and another where he confirms that she did think that she won the tilt. The context that Oberyn gives – that this is a story that merited a mention on the Princess’s deathbed, no less than 6 years after the incident and
(probably) after Elia had married Rhaegar – coupled by his lack of objection to Tyrion’s assumption that the Princess did think of the offer as an outrage makes me inclined to take this as the Princess’s
take too and not just Oberyn’s. After all, if she didn’t take it as an insult, why did she
think that she won the tilt like Oberyn confirms? Yes, it’s absolutely because wedding Elia to Rhaegar was a resounding rebuff to the ableism Tywin showed towards Elia, but that is intrinsically tied to Tyrion and his disability.

Thing is, the ableism against Elia can not be separated from the ableism against Tyrion because it was delivered through Tyrion. The very expression of Tywin’s ableism towards Elia was in offering disabled Tyrion instead of able-bodied Jaime, sending a message that sickly Elia could only be worthy for the disabled kid, not the golden able-bodied one. If Tyrion was not disabled, if there was no ableism leveled at him from both parties, the offer wouldn’t have been an insult in the first place. We can’t claim that the Princess of Dorne was insulted only because the offer of Tyrion displayed ableism towards Elia which had nothing to do with Tyrion himself when said ableism lies in offering Tyrion. If she didn’t think there was something wrong with Tyrion, then what was the insult to Elia? That Tyrion was much younger? That might have made the match a bad fit, disadvantageous and unsuitable for the Princess’ dynastic hopes, but it’s no insult in and of itself. Not “an outrage” as Tyrion put it and Oberyn agreed with him. Simply a part of dynastic negotiation.

Nor can the fact that Tywim refused the match be taken as an insult on its own, unless every other lord took failed marital plans as a personal insult, and unless the Princess of Dorne herself took Tywin’s rejection of Oberyn for Cersei as an insult. Which she didn’t though Tywin’s brusque tone clearly bothered her. Too, it can not be said that Tywin reneged on a previous marital agreement because we got no indication that Tywin even knew about the correspondence between the Princess and Joanna, and Joanna’s own agreement can not be seen as a solid promise of betrothal that Tywin should be held to because marriages are typically arranged and negotiated between heads of Houses so Joanna couldn’t have formally betrothed the twins without Tywin’s approval. As a political actor in her own right, the Princess knew that, which is further supported by how all the information we have indicates that she didn’t approach the matter like it was previously preliminary approved. I’d also think
that the Princess would have mentioned it to Oberyn if this was a case of Tywin going back on his word,
considering that betrothal agreements are a big deal in Westeros.

while ableism is rampant, given elia’s own condition,
the fact that dorne is more lenient with pretty much everything, and
tywin’s betrayal, i think it just as likely she took it as just a plain
insult, irrespective of tyrion’s condition.

I don’t think that Elia’s illness precludes the Princess of Dorne displaying ableist behavior. It is not uncommon for someone to display prejudice against the same minority group that a loved one belongs to. This is a bit like saying that someone isn’t racist because they have PoC in their family. Not only does casual prejudice exist in behavior that isn’t consciously recognized as prejudice, but selectivity in prejudice also exists. It is not uncommon for someone to exclude a loved one from a certain prejudice. We see this all the time in real life and also repeatedly in the text. Various Starks causally dehumanize Tyrion by referring to him by a slur or reducing him to his disability, but they’d never do that to Bran (though casual ableism towards Bran does creep up in several places because they don’t even realize that’s ableism). Tywin is a ramping misogynist who thinks women are inherently inferior and has wild issues with powerful women but Joanna was still his confidante who he left in charge when he was absent.
Rhaenyra Targaryen displayed the usual prejudice and scapegoating of
bastards when she ordered the arrest of Addam Velaryon based on nothing but his bastardy, even though
her fiercely protected elder three sons were all bastards. Lysa Tully is grossly ableist towards Tyrion, even though her own beloved child is also a victim of Westerosi ableism. 

Oberyn himself showed ableist behavior towards Tyrion in a way I highly doubt he showed with either of his beloved siblings.

(I also think there is a conversation to be had about the kind of disability in question because that does affect the form of ableism leveled at a disabled person.
Ableism aimed at Tyrion is different from the one aimed at Elia is
different from the one aimed at Lollys is different from the one aimed
at Hodor, even though all have points of correlation and all share the implicit belief that the disabled person is worth less than others. That casual assumption of Tyrion’s immorality and evilness and violence even as a baby or before he’d done anything questionable that’s from people who aren’t as grossly ableist as the Lannisters, that’s a distinct pattern of disturbingly common reactions to Tyrion that is patterned to his specific disability. But I’m not really equipped to tackle this subject so I’ll leave to more informed people).

additionally, the fact that elia was besotted with baby tyrion and
thought him absolutely adorable, and that oberyn thought him a perfectly
normal (or at least not deformed “enough”) baby suggests the POD didn’t
display much ableism at all in raising them. maybe they just turned out
well in spite of her, but i’m not inclined to think that the case.    
      

That’s a too narrow view of what ableism is, though. It restricts ableism to the purposely malicious and more extreme form, to instances where people call a disabled baby monstrous because of his disability or use it as an excuse to abuse him. But that is not the only form of ableism there is. Casual ableism is still ableism.

More importantly, it is not accurate to imply the Martells haven’t shown ableism and use it as a proof that the Princess didn’t display it in turn. Because Oberyn was repeatedly ableist. He might have thought Tyrion “a poor sort of monster”, but he said baby Tyrion had “an evil eye” (evil being a stereotype often used against Tyrion due to his dwarfism which automatically vilifies him in the eyes of everyone), regularly referred to him as the Imp, told him to his face that it was an outrage that he was put forward as an option for his sister and expected Tyrion to see where he was coming from. Oberyn displayed a lot of casual ableism with Tyrion, because ableism is inescapable in their society. I tend to think about the instance with the Princess of Dorne as a similar kind of casual ableism. I reiterate that I don’t think the Princess of Dorne was malicious or that she wanted to tear Tyrion down. But I do think that she thought him not good enough for her daughter because of his disability, in a similar way to Catelyn’s reaction to his marriage to Sansa (though that has other elements as well, of course. But thinking of Tyrion as “the
twisted little man” really can’t be taken as anything but ableism).

Point
is, one doesn’t need to be actively abusive or terrible to be ableist.
Some of the kindest souls in the series like Sansa and Bran still
display that prejudice, not out of maliciousness or a desire to hurt and
not out of a conscious belief of superiority to the disabled
person. Jon Snow actively lorded his physicality over Tyrion at
the beginning. It doesn’t mean they are bad people. But that doesn’t
make their behavior any less ableist, not when it’s built on, informed
by and expressed through a person’s disability.

joannalannister:

We’re celebrating my birthday with an ASOIAF Art Giveaway! This is the fourth year we’ve had an art giveaway for my birthday. I have a lot of fun hosting them, and I hope everyone who participates has fun too!

PRIZE: Commissioned ASOIAF art by chillyravenart of two characters from ASOIAF, subject to certain restrictions.

You can see some examples of @chillyravenart​‘s beautiful artwork on her tumblr and on her deviantart. If you would like to reblog the examples of her art featured above, you can find them here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

RULES:

  • You must reblog this post to enter, and you must be following me. (I will check!) New followers are welcome, but don’t just follow me for the giveaway, that’s rude.
  • Likes count as an additional entry.
  • You get 1 like + 1 reblog = 2 chances to win.
  • No giveaway blogs.
  • The giveaway closes on my birthday, October 14! You have until 9pm PT on October 14th to reblog this post, at which time a winner will be chosen via a random number generator.  
  • The winner must have their askbox open, and they must respond within 3 days, or a new winner will be chosen.
  • Read the detailed rules & restrictions.

Thank you all so much for following me, and good luck!

I hope you can answer this. I got into a debate on Quora with a commenter re: Rhaegar, where I said him not moving his kids to safety makes their deaths at least partially his fault. She said no, because Rhaegar left his kids with Jaime, who “betrayed him” and who he thought was a “man of honor.” I couldn’t even. I’m far from a Jaime stan, but this felt ridiculous. Am I totally off base?

No, you’re most certainly not. I take issue with this being framed as Rhaegar being a victim of Jaime’s dishonor and betrayal to mitigate Rhaegar’s share of responsibility for one. Not to mention the factually inaccurate account of Jaime’s actions and situation during that period of time. First of all, it’s really not as cut and dry as Rhaegar leaving his kids in Jaime’s care.

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.”
   

   
        

Jaime’s anger had risen up in his throat. “I am not a crutch. I am a knight of the Kingsguard.”

“Then guard the king,” Ser Jon Darry snapped at him. “When you donned that cloak, you promised to obey.”

In the purely technical sense, Rhaegar didn’t leave his kids with Jaime. He left Jaime with Aerys to be used as an assurance against a possible betrayal from Tywin. Rhaegar was under no illusions as to where Jaime would be and what his function in the city would be. He explicitly left Jaime behind to “guard” Aerys, knowing that Aerys would keep Jaime close to him.

Moreover, while it can be argued that Rhaegar not specifically instructing Jaime to guard his children certainly does not remove Jaime’s duty towards the rest of the royal family, I’d have to wonder about Rhaegar’s expectations here if he thinks that one person can simultaneously be responsible for six different people who weren’t in the same location. I think that it says more about Rhaegar for him to take three Kingsguard with him to the Trident, leave another three in Dorne with Lyanna and expect the one remaining Kingsguard to shoulder the duty of guarding the king, the queen, the crown princess, Viserys, Rhaenys and Aegon, than it does about Jaime. One 17-year-old with possible divided loyalties whom Rhaegar acknowledges is basically a hostage for his father’s good behavior can not realistically do or be expected to do that and held to blame if he couldn’t. Though I actually doubt that Rhaegar thought of that or actually expected Jaime to do take on that burden because, as I’ve said before, Rhaegar didn’t seem to consider the possibility of defeat or that his children would be in danger in light of what he believed was their prophetic destiny.

Second, there is the question of whether timing and location could have even allowed Jaime to save Elia and her children.

Ser Elys Westerling and Lord
Crakehall and others of his father’s knights burst into the hall in
time to see the last of [Jaime killing Aerys], so there was no way for Jaime to vanish and
let some braggart steal the praise or blame. It would be blame, he knew
at once when he saw the way they looked at him … though perhaps that
was fear. Lannister or no, he was one of Aerys’s seven.

  

“The castle is ours, ser, and the city,” Roland Crakehall told
him, which was half true. Targaryen loyalists were still dying on the
serpentine steps and in the armory, Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch were scaling the walls of Maegor’s Holdfast, and Ned Stark was leading his northmen through the King’s Gate even then.

Per the timeline, Jaime was defending the Red Keep when the sack began. He sent a messenger to Aerys asking for permission to surrender when he saw the situation was hopeless and they were getting overwhelmed, but Aerys demanded Jaime brings him Tywin’s head instead. The messenger also informed him that Rossart was with the king so when Jaime saw Rossart leaving the Red Keep, he knew that Rossart was going to execute the wildfire plan and killed him before he could. He then went to kill Aerys in the throne room. While that was happening, Gregor Clegane and Amory Lord were scaling the walls of Maegor’s Holdfast which is no easy feat and isn’t something that could have been reasonably predicted. So it’s possible that for Jaime to be present to protect either Elia and Aegon or Rhaenys (because there’s no way he could have saved all three when they were on different floors), he’d have had to abandon his plans to kill Rossart and Aerys which ultimately would have rendered his efforts worthless because Eli and the kids would have gotten blown to pieces anyway along with everyone else when the capital explodes.

Now, could Jaime have made it to the royal apartments if he’d killed Rossart but not Aerys? Possibly. But that 1) potentially runs the risk of Aerys possibly ordering one of the other pyromancers to ignite the wildfire for all Jaime knew, 2) treats the act of scaling Maegor’s Holdfast as an easily doable thing – which it wasn’t due to its design – that could be predicted with no trouble

and 3) assumes that Jaime had reason to believe Elia and the children were in danger, which he didn’t according to his PoV.

Prince Rhaegar burned with a cold light, now white, now red, now dark. “I left my wife and children in your hands.”

“I never thought he’d hurt them.” Jaime’s sword was burning less brightly now. “I was with the king …”

“Killing the king,” said Ser Arthur.

Jaime didn’t think that Tywin would do this. Whether he truly believed that or just deluded himself into believing it is too tangled with his traumatic experience as a Kingsguard and his psychological issues regarding his father. But Jaime was 17 years old and suffering from PTSD, in a high stakes situation that left him psychologically compromised. Not just the sack, not just the wildfire plot or the order to kill his own father, but the simple magnitude of what he was doing in going against what the system and multiple revered knights have tried to indoctrinate him to which is more than relevant in deciding his headspace. For over a year, the elder Kingsguard have been doing
nothing but trying to inculcate in Jaime that his duty was to obey the
king uncritically. To guard but not to judge. To protect the royal
family but not from the king. Jaime had to cut through that to do the right thing. He knew that it was the right thing, but he is still haunted with guilt over it, as he is haunted by the idea of failing Rhaegar. But I find it hard and unfairly harsh to hold Jaime responsible for Elia and the children’s murder when his opportunity to prevent it was slim, and utterly ridiculous to make this into a betrayal and a question of honor.