I don’t really understand why people think that elia would be okay with rhaegar running with lyanna. Since you have been answering questions regarding elia for past few days will you please answer this too.

Sure. That’s what I like to call the She is Dornish Syndrome. Basically, the fact that Elia is Dornish and that the Dornish have paramours has been twisted into a belief that the Dornish culture as a whole is permissive of adultery, or even a more extreme view that marriage just wasn’t that necessary in Dorne. The theory is that Elia shared Rhaegar’s belief in the prophecy and in the necessity of a third child, and that her culture meant that she was okay with paramours and/or bastards.

I find that to be dismissive of relatively recent Westerosi history that saw a Targaryen bastard use anti-Dornish sentiment to try and supplant his trueborn brother and his half-Dornish heirs, a conflict that lasted generations and only ended in Elia’s lifetime (hitting fairly close to Dorne on the Stepstones, which is probably the reason the Unnamed Princess of Dorne was appointed as one of then-Princess Rhaella’s ladies. Prince Lewyn Martell almost certainly took part in the fighting as well). The Blackfyre rebellions left their mark on all of Westeros and engendered a deep fear of bastards that is still present in current time, as Catelyn Stark showed with Jon Snow. In light of that, I don’t see how it makes any sense for Elia to accept such a risk to her children or to her own position in court (as Queen Naerys faced in the era of the Unworthy’s mistresses, from Aegon wanting to crown his mistress in a tourney in a blatant insult to Naerys (sounds suspiciously familiar, doesn’t it) to Barbra Bracken openly speaking of taking Naerys’ place after the latter died. Oh and would you look at that, Elia’s health was delicate just as Naerys’ had been!)

Too, that theory is built on a bastardization of the information we have about Dornish culture because while Dorne does permit for people to have a relationship without marrying and is more tolerant to bastards, allowing a relationship that’s not marriage is not the same as allowing adultery. Monogamy isn’t confined to the bonds of marriage, but saying that people having a relationship without being married makes them more accepting of adultery implies that monogamy is only practiced in marriage. To no one’s surprise, all the examples of Dornish paramours that we’ve seen in the text are not adulterous. Oberyn and Ellaria. Arianna and Daemon. Lewyn and his unknown paramour. Probably Ryon Allyrion and Daemon’s mother. While I’m sure that adulterous Dornish nobles do exist, that’s still not a reflection on the entire culture. Other kingdoms have lots of nobles cheating on their wives and fathering bastards to the point where noble ladies are taught to accept it on the basis of men having needs, but I don’t see someone saying that Reachmen are fine with adultery or that Stormlanders don’t care about bastards. It just happens that it’s the prominent POC culture that receives the label of not particularly caring about monogamy, or that is treated as a monolith based on one single person. Because more often than not, it’s Oberyn’s example of (what fandom has decided to call) an open relationship with Ellaria that is used to stereotype the entire Dornish culture, as if Oberyn is the representative of all Donrishmen. And that’s without even getting into the argument that the occasional threesome Oberyn and Ellaria had does not mean an open relationship, or the fact that Oberyn’s life choices are not in any way indicative of Elia’s, not just as a separate voice from Oberyn’s that is not beholden to his worldview or choices, but as someone who occupies a completely different political office as the crown princess and future queen, as opposed to second son Oberyn.

However, I’ve talked before about how I lay part of the blame for that at GRRM’s feet. For one, he heavily uses the exotic-erotic trope in Dorne and hypersexualizes the Dornish characters to an unusual extent compared to other characters. The way the Dornish characters are handled in the text is a huge problem and Martin really does them dirty. Throughout three books, the only knowledge we had of Dorne is a series of stereotypes and a supposedly “funny” song (The Dornishman’s Wife) that emphasizes two things: that the Dornish have hot tempers, and that they are sexually promiscuous and prone to adultery. Dornish women are generally regarded as wanton which we hear repeatedly before Martin thinks to give any of them a voice. It takes him till half-way through book 3 to introduce a Dornish character; when he does, it’s Tyrion who is the PoV meaning that our view of Oberyn is filtered through his eyes, and Tyrion is clearly affected by the casual racism that permeates Westeros. Martin proceeds to double-down on the hypersexualization of the Dornish when, in a very few interactions between Tyrion and Oberyn, the latter brings up sex constantly, first asking for a brothel, then talking about taking Cersei to his and Ellaria’s bed, and finally calling his longtime girlfriend “a lusty wench”.

Martin then repeats his offense with Arianne Martell who we first meet through the eyes of the incredibly racist Arys Oakheart who gifts us with his insightful assessment “remember, she is Dornish”, which isn’t made better by how our first introduction to Arianne is in a sexual situation. Even when we finally get a Dornish PoV (four books in), Arianne is still sexualized in her own chapters. We get to hear about a sexual experience she had with Drey and Tyene at the age of ten that did not go further simply because Drey got overexcited (all while Martin informs us that Arianne thinks of Tyene as her sister to just add that pesky incestuous element, topped by Arianne’s later fantasies about Oberyn). Martin does the same thing with Lady Nym who was abed with the Fowler twins when the news about Oberyn’s death arrived, again adding a completely unnecessary incestuous element to his already unnecessary sexualization. Even 14-year-old Elia Sand is sexualized.

Keep in mind that I don’t mean to absolve fandom in any way because we do know this is not, in fact, reflective of all Dornish as characters like Doran, Quentyn, Queen Mariah, Dyanna Dayne and many others prove. The choice to ignore them in favor of perpetuating a racist stereotype is on those who choose to promote it. But Martin is certainly culpable in fandom behavior towards Elia and towards the Dornish as a whole by using racist tropes that enforces harmful stereotypes without any effort at deconstructing it.

Which brings me to another thing Martin is responsible for in regards to Elia: that her entire characterization in the text is one line about how witty and gracious she is. In depriving Elia of her interiority and voice, Martin has left her as a nearly blank slate for fandom to project their ideas on. Those who want to absolve Rhaegar or to mitigate the unsavory elements of his relationship with Lyanna have the space to make her to be a part of Rhaegar’s plans to elevate the criticism of Rhaegar humiliating and abandoning her. Sometimes it’s even people who like Elia who adopt the same theory because they just want Elia to have some autonomy in her story. In making Elia a Dead Lady who exists to give birth, suffer, and advance the plot of male characters, Martin left Elia open to being mistreated by fandom as well as the text, which fandom naturally took to the next level. He left her open to having the reader’s choice of motivation, beliefs and character thrust on her and treated as a fact. Which is where the bizarre conviction that Elia believed in the prophecy and thus blessed Rhaegar’s actions comes from as well, even though that still dismisses politics (the Blackfyres), recent history (Summerhall), and additionally assumes that Rhaegar’s power of conviction is so mighty that Elia must have shared his beliefs.

Speaking of, I always have a reaction when someone assumes Elia (or Lyanna) must have believed in the prophecy simply because Rhaegar did. In the absence of supporting evidence, this often implies that these two women were just beholden to Rhaegar’s ideas. As if they were incapable of having another opinion. As if they had to follow Rhaegar’s convictions. I’ve written before about how unlikely I find it that Lyanna believed in the prophecy, and most of it applies to Elia as well. I’d just add that Elia was really close to Oberyn so if she did believe the prophecy, we’d have gotten a hint that she talked of it to him, if even only to calm her famously hot-headed brother after the mess at Harrenhal. At the very least she would have taken part in securing proper holdings for Lyanna in Dorne with adequate medical care, instead of the remote tower that Lyanna had to give birth in (something that possibly contributed to her death).

But as with Lyanna, I still don’t think that even Elia’s presumed belief in the prophecy could be used to pardon Rhaegar.
Rhaegar’s actions don’t cease to have consequences if Elia believes in
the prophecy. His accountability and complicity in instigating the
rebellion do not get erased if Elia believes in the prophecy. His needless public scorning of Elia at Harrenhal is not made better if Elia believes in the prophecy. His terrible oversight in leaving Elia and his children vulnerable to his father’s whims and his willful neglect to ensure their safety is not justified if Elia believes in the prophecy. Rhaegar
had a responsibility to
Elia and her children, and he squandered it. He should have known
better. He should have done better.

itsallavengers:

Tony Stark, The Peters, literally everyone else: We need to plan and prepare and get ourselves ready for this attack- wear your suits at all times and don’t try anything stupid.

Steve Rogers, beard bristling: I am going to fiGhT THANOS WITH MY B A R E H A N D S

What’s there that’s so appealing about Rhaegar? Why does he get so many people excusing his every move and fabricating events to make him look better?

Well, bias towards a character (especially a handsome white man) that leads fans to exonerate their favorite from any wrongdoing is hardly a novelty in fandom, especially in the case of a character that you find personally relatable or particularly sympathetic. I reckon we’ve all been guilty of that at one point or another, I know I certainly was. Now, I can’t really speak with any kind of authority for someone else’s reasons for stanning Rhaegar (you’ll have to ask them for that), but I can offer some thoughts as to what could have fueled the attraction to Rhaegar according to my own initial reaction to his character. In my experience, it comes down to a few factors.

Popular tropes and reader’s affinity for romantic narratives play a big part in the perception of Rhaegar and of his actions with Lyanna. Medieval literature leans heavily on the traditional trope of courtly love that often adds an ennobling (and sympathetic) veneer to the characters by how it constantly emphasizes notions of nobility and chivalry. The main focus becomes the purity of love and the tragedy of the star-crossed lovers torn apart by circumstances. Some of the most famous classic love stories, like Lancelot and
Guinevere, are built so heavily on accentuating the tragedy of the love story above all else that readers have become almost conditioned to empathize and root for its subjects.

The Rhaegar and Lyanna narrative greatly invokes that trope, with a narrative beginning with Rhaegar crowning Lyanna as Queen of Love and Beauty, itself a fundamental chivalric action done by a renowned knight in one of the most visible demonstration of chivalric culture. Think of the optics of that; the romantic tinge it gives the story and how it calls to the audience’s sympathy with stories of star-crossed lovers. Lyanna is set up as the heroine struggling with a patriarchal society and unwanted betrothal, Rhaegar as the silver prince who defied his father in covering up her identity as the Knight of the Laughing Tree, and defied social norms in “honoring” her bravery. There is a secret meeting where Rhaegar carries Lyanna off and 
away from the adulterous offputting man that she did not want to be married to

in what can be constructed as a very knight-in-shining-armor-esque move. Oh but the story ends in utter tragedy, with their families on opposing sides in war and
both Rhaegar and Lyanna dying bloodily apart while the text winks at us with a mention of how Rhaegar’s last words was a woman’s name. It’s a note-perfect use of the trope.

While a closer look uncovers how suspect Rhaegar’s actions were with Lyanna and how that popular star-crossed narrative came at the expense of Elia Martell and her children both personally and politically even from the very start, before Rhaegar set the ball rolling on the events that ended in their (and his) death, the optics are still pretty powerful, particularly because it is supported with some pretty heady romantic imagery presented by a slew of unreliable narrators. Rhaegar, albeit initially presented as a hated villainous figure through Robert, gets the advantage of having so many PoV characters idealizing him and painting a picture of a sensitive courteous man who surely did not mean to cause that much strife. Look at how he is keeps getting described.

[Rhaegar] liked to sleep in the ruined hall, beneath the moon and stars, and
whenever he came back he would bring a song. When you heard him play his
high harp with the silver strings and sing of twilights and
tears and the death of kings, you could not but feel that he was singing
of himself and those he loved.  


Many a night [Cersei] had watched Prince Rhaegar in the hall, playing his silver-stringed
harp with those long, elegant fingers of his. Had any man ever been so
beautiful? He was more than a man, though. His blood was the blood of
old Valyria, the blood of dragons and gods.

By night the prince played his silver harp and made her
weep. When she had been presented to him, Cersei had almost drowned in
the depths of his sad purple eyes. He has been wounded, she recalled
thinking, but I will mend his hurt when we are wed. Next to Rhaegar,
even her beautiful Jaime had seemed no more than a callow boy.

At the welcoming feast, the prince had taken up his silver-stringed
harp and played for them. A song of love and doom, Jon Connington
recalled, and every woman in the hall was weeping when he put down the
harp

Even his death is heavy with romanticism.

Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her
brother told her the stories. The midnight flight to Dragonstone,
moonlight shimmering on the ship’s black sails. Her brother Rhaegar
battling the Usurper in the bloody waters of the Trident and dying for the woman he loved.

Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he
sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a
woman’s name

His blood swirled downriver with the rubies from his
breastplate, and Robert the Usurper rode over his corpse to steal the
Iron Throne. Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died.“


It’s all so terribly tragic. So terribly beautiful. So romantic. It invites you to sympathize with Rhaegar, almost indirectly lures you to actually with all the beauty of the description. And with Barristan firmly asserting that “Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna and thousands died for it”, we have the optimum chivalric romance to root for. A sacrifice to love and for love, it does have its share of dark beauty, until you look too close and start shaking your fist at the damn idiot.

And as the narrative sets Rhaegar as this tragic figure, it makes Robert his complete opposite. Callous while Rhaegar is reputably courteous. Irresponsible while Rhaegar wanted to overthrow his father and save humanity. A brute while Rhaegar is chivalrous and gentle. It’s fairly easy to buy into that image of Rhaegar when so many people are selling it to you. And that’s the power of the current narrators. The one person
to ever think of Robert fondly was Ned Stark, and that PoV was lost to
us with Ned’s death in book one. Not even Robert’s own brothers think of him fondly. Compare that to how many PoVs we have that
think the world of Rhaegar in the last two books alone: Cersei, Jaime, Dany, Barristan
and JonCon. We’ve spent 4 books without a good word on Robert Baratheon
wheres we’re drowning in romanticized exclamations about how sadly
beautiful and beautifully sad Rhaegar Targaryen was. Of course people
would lean towards absolving Rhaegar in their hatred of the figure
Robert cut. When we’ve spent paragraphs reading about Robert’s abuse of Cersei, when we’ve seen what an awful husband, brother, father, friend and king he made, when we’ve literally just read about Robert being a rapist, it’s extremely easy to agree with Cersei’s conclusion that the wrong man came back from the trident.

That view is exacerbated by the simple fact
that we’ve met Robert in current time. Whereas Ned can think fondly of
the man he used to know (Ned’s arc in AGoT was largely about him discovering Robert’s awfulness), and Renly paints a picture of what Robert used
to be and look like, the man we meet and spend time with is hedonistic,
self-indulgent, irresponsible, lazy, violent, etc. All while Rhaegar
gets to maintain his image as the gallant silver prince, forever
preserved

in
beauty and youth and glorified in the memories of an enchanted crowd of
PoV characters. Don’t underestimate the power of a beautiful face and a
charming nature in getting people to root for or forgive someone. Sansa is not the
only one who ascribes morality and decency based on looks whether within the
books or in RL. If you want more proof, look no further than the reaction to
Renly Baratheon, a beautiful face that hides a hollow personality but who gets supporters because he looks impressive as opposed to Stannis. Or look at GRRM’s pointed critique of the tendency to make evil characters ugly and good characters beautiful in literature.

Unfortunately, sometimes that’s all that some readers take away from the story. It is
all there, it does heavily skewer perception of Rhaegar. But that’s
what GRRM does; he enjoy playing with our perception of characters by
introducing them by reputation before setting to deconstructing that
biased view (Tywin and Stannis are the clearest examples of that). We
have lots of character that speak highly of Rhaegar but the text clearly
sets them up as unreliable narrators. The one person whose account of Rhaegar can
be taken as reliable is Ned because he shows a peculiar reaction for a man who lost most of his family to the crown prince’s folly. But a lack of hostility (that likely had more to do with Jon and Ned’s own coping mechanisms than Rhaegar himself)
isn’t an absolution, and Ned’s comment about Rhaegar not frequenting
brothels (which is another layer of the constant juxtaposition of Robert
and Rhaegar) isn’t the height of character endorsement as far as I’m concerned. There are
several points of critique embedded in even the limited account we have
of how the story of Rhaegar and Lyanna unfolded, from what was done to both Elia and Lyanna to the political crisis that he caused to his selfish decision to fight in his father’s name. From where I’m standing, this looks like another instance of Martin deconstructing and interrogating a rather popular trope.

Or two. Because courtly love isn’t the only trope involved in this narrative. Another traditional trope is the secret Prince/Savior/Hero that has always yearned to be more and felt that he could be more, who discovers his true origin story in a triumphant moment that affirms his hero status based on his paternity and sets him on the path of saving his people/the world/humanity so he could be the Certified Hero TM. It might be that the excusing of Rhaegar has roots in the desire for Jon to have that moment of triumph that works far more with a straight love story between Rhaegar and Lyanna than with a complicated narrative pregnant with the inherent power imbalance, the consent issues, and all the blunders Rhaegar made in his pursuit of a prophecy-child. If all that was recognized, then Jon’s moment of discovery would be horrific rather than triumphant. Jon is one of the main heroes and readers want him to be triumphant and to have that moment. Which necessitates for Rhaegar to be justified in his actions. Needless to say, Martin’s themes of subverting the Hero’s Journey with Aegon and his continued examination of how to define a hero contradicts a simple narrative of Jon being empowered by his discovery of his savior status and his paternity. I believe this discovery is gonna be his struggle rather than his triumph. His real triumph is gonna be earned by his own choice to be a hero, not by a pedigree or a prophecy making him one.

I’m still waiting for ACS to finish to start ranting but I will say that the show missed an opportunity to explore the racial elements in Modesto and Andrew’s backstory and how that is part of an American Crime Story, not that the show showed much interest in approaching race this reason. I’m sorry but there’s definitely merit in the concerns about whitewashing that emerged a while back because they spent 7 episodes without a hint that Andrew was half-Filipino and his race was just a non-element all this time. The repeated mentions of the pineapple plantations in the Philippines in Andrew’s narrative came across as another of his fantastical lies since half of it was a lie. They have set the audience to disbelieve everything that came out of his mouth then forgot to show a main part of his identity until the penultimate episode.

Even if I assume that they were concerned a racial exploration would translate as a justification rather than an exploration, it’d still be frustrating because it hits on another problem with the show. The kid gloves they have been using in depicting Andrew as not possessing an ounce of sympathy has made him one-note. There is a difference between excusing a murderer or making him too sympathetic, and giving a proper backstory that makes him a human being albeit an awful one. Layered characters with sympathetic background can still be villainous, but the creators were apparently terrified of being accused of glorifying a killer that they forgot to make him a person. I can’t say that this latest episode completely remedied that because while it gave him some level of humanization, it was just too damn late.

wycombewanderer:

artsy-hijabi:

Okay so I cant find anything about this on tumblr being shown but I was just ranting about this earlier.

Letters above have been dropped in peoples homes in England announcing a “Punish a Muslim Day” for the 3rd April, and the contents of it is really disgusting and frankly horrifying. Clearly by the introduction of the letter you can tell these have been created and distributed by far right white supremacist groups.

The letter shows a table of scores given for each hate crime, such as pulling the headscarf off a Muslim woman, burning or bombing a mosque, throwing acid, torturing, as well as verbal abuse. The highest score is ‘nuking Mecca’.

Please spread this round, because this should be causing a global outrage. It’s already been covered by various news outlets in the UK, including Pakistani news channels making it a prominent headline. Muslim families are calling in scared and worried that they should stay indoors on the day, Muslim communities are fearing their lives.

note: someone nearby had one of these letters posted through their letterbox and it was laced with an acidic chemical so please be wary of opening and just report to police as soon as you see a suspicious letter.