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riana-one

replied to your post

“@lyannas
replied to your post “@riana-one
replied to your post …”

I keep wanting to scream the BLACKFYRES but lacking that Rhaegar acts more Aegon the Unworthy than anyone else. Humiliate his wife by presenting the QoLaB to his mistress. Check. Fake marrying his mistress. Check. Acting on whims & inferring with his bannerman. Check.

Ironically enough this is what the argument that Rhaegar was motivated
by his
love for Lyanna casts him as – an Aegon the UnworthyRhaenyra figure too
busy
chasing personal pleasure to care about the realm he condemned by his
actions.
This goes to a conversation I had yesterday with @morganaaithusa about
how that
narrative does nothing but actually paint Rhaegar in a rather terrible
light because
it means that he caused a civil war that cost thousands of lives to
satisfy a
personal whim, which deprives him from even the veneer of a noble
purpose that
exists in the prophecy scenario. Despite the countless problems with
Rhaegar’s lack of reflection
on the consequences of his actions and all his blunders, at least being motivated by the prophecy means that we can
argue that he was pursuing
the worthy goal of saving humanity, a greater good that he took
countless risks in the name of, which, despite not making any of what
he
actually did alright or even closely making up for the thousands of
lives that
paid the price of his idiocy, at least does not paint a picture of a
selfish
entitled ass who thought his crown gives him the right to do whatever he
wanted. Trying to fulfill a prophetic destiny gives Rhaegar a goal
that isn’t centered on catering to his own pleasure and happiness and
fuck everyone else. Rhaegar’s intent and desire to save Westeros is what sets him apart from previous historical Targaryen figures who caused Westeros so much grief because they were only interested in catering to their pleasure and whims.

But if we go with claims of a torrid love affair that prompted Rhaegar to
cause a political crisis because luuuuuuv, that’s quite damning. Just how
selfish and conceited was Rhaegar to think that his feelings gave him the right
to insult three Great Houses in a blatant disrespect of social mores and the
chivalric code, how monumental was his view of his own self-importance and
power for him to think that he could just disappear with the daughter of a Lord
Paramount and the betrothed of another simply because he desired her, how staggeringly
cruel and callous was he to think that love or desire gave him the
licence to humiliate his pregnant wife who did nothing to deserve this in such
a public fashion, how precarious was his grip on reality and politics for him
to ever entertain the thought that his method of “winning” Lyanna – carrying
her off to his wife’s home country and remaining where no one could find
them for months – could amount to anything but a scandal and devastating
backlash. What even was Rhaegar’s plan for his “love” in this scenario? That
he’d emerge after Lyanna was pregnant, and Rickard Stark, Robert Baratheon and
the Martells would just nod and say congratulations?

That love argument means that
Rhaegar was perfectly willing to walk over so many people for the sake of his
personal pleasure, to cause several political crises and
risk civil war twice over just to satisfy a selfish desire. This argument makes
it virtually impossible to muster even the tiniest bit of sympathy or understanding
for Rhaegar. It paints him as a self-serving insensitive douche who was not
only perfectly willing to sacrifice the lives of many as long as he got what he
wanted, but also as someone who cruelly and purposely humiliated his wife and
insulted his future bannermen for ABSLOUTELY NO REASON but to satisfy his royal
desire. And he thought he could get away with it all, with disappearing with
Lyanna so daringly and alienating at least three Lords Paramount and all the
other crap, simply because he was the crown prince. If that is the story
of Rhaegar and Lyanna, then Rhaegar truly was Aegon the Unworthy*slash*Rhaenyra,
not a thought to anyone and anything but selfish personal desires.

omgellendean:

I’ve seen people thinking that Sansa was beaten only once while she was in 

King’s Landing

(and it would be already one time too many, thank you), or that she was spared the worst beatings. I’m not sure where is this coming from, maybe it’s because the scene in the yard was more memorable, or because author (and Sansa with him) doesn’t dwell on those moments very much. But still, it’s not true in both cases. When Sandor says he watched how the Kingsguards “beat [Sansa] bloody” it’s not a figure of speech. 

Continua a leggere

GRRM has said the north and dorne can raise roughly the same number of troops and both the north and dorne don’t have much in terms of navy and are thinly populated regions of westeros. So would it be right to say that the north was included in the SA conspiracy because of rickard stark’s friendship with jon arryn which the princess of dorne lacked?

warsofasoiaf:

The SSM that mentions that puts the North’s strength at roughly 18,000, but as we see in A Dance With Dragons, the North actually can field a lot more troops once the mountain clans are taken into account. I think Dorne’s numbers, due to the incredibly devastating generational wars with the Targaryens, are in
an artificial population shortage that they are still recovering from. In the current circumstances, the North is fielding more troops than Dorne.

There’s also strategic considerations in place. A Stark alliance with the Tullys secures their northern border, whereas a Dornish alliance requires a detachment to man the Prince’s Pass to stop any potential Reachman incursion while the rest file down the Boneway to support their Stormlander allies. A coastal landing on the North is a difficult endeavor, the wide open terrain means that any seaborne invasion is a longtime coming and risks leaving oneself underdefended against the truly massive armies of the combined Riverlands/Vale/Stormlands. And if the Redwynes are on board, the mighty Arbor fleet provides a significant deterrent, the only ones with the strength to challenge the Arbor’s fleet at sea are the Royal Fleet and the ironborn. The ironborn are at a significant disadvantage thanks to their smaller ships, as this is before Balon invests in the larger Iron Fleet specifically to provide greater punching power in ship-to-ship engagements as opposed to the more raiding-oriented longships.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

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@lyannas

replied to your post

“@lyannas
replied to your post “@riana-one
replied to your post …”

yes, all of this + the fact that even IF dornish culture accepted adultery, that’s not rhaegar’s culture to co-opt and then turn around and say “well the DORNISH do it”. so what if they do? is rhaegar dornish? does elia have a paramour? nope and nope. it’s a flimsy excuse in a sea of flimsy excuses to make elia anything less than a humiliated victim

That’s a very good point.

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@riana-one

replied to your post

“@riana-one
replied to your post “tfw someone hails Rhaegar for…”

But they ignore all actual history like a high born bastard never threatened a Dornish queen and her half Dornish son. Or caused a series of conflicts that plagued Westeros for multiple generations and were only ended in recent memory. Or even if Elia didn’t love Rhaegar she would totes be okay with being publicly humiliated on a national stage so her husband can fuck the fourteen year old.

Exactly! Even if we discard the personal elements, the argument that Elia was on board with Rhaegar’s plans do not make sense politically or dynastically. I’m gonna be pompous here and quote myself:

Elia’s marriage was dynastic – one that was directly connected to
previous TargaryenMartell unions that were, in no small part, the
incentive that garnered support for Daemon Blackfyre and started the
Blackfyre rebellions. Like, come on guys, history matters, and GRRM
didn’t give us the info on the Blackfyres or keep bringing them up in
the main novels for nothing. We can not speak of a TargaryenMartell
dynastic marriage without keeping in mind the Blackfyre rebellions since
the support Daemon Blackfyre garnered was explicitly anti-Dornish.
The lords supporting Daemon were against everything Dornish, from
Daeron II’s concessions to bring Dorne into the fold of the Seven
Kingdoms to his Dornish Queen to the increased Dornish influence in
court, to the looks of the half-Martell crown prince, Baelor Breakspear.
Four other attempts to take the throne followed, plaguing
Dornish-blooded monarchs: the half Martell Aerys I and Maekar, Maekar’s
son Aegon V (whose mother is also Dornish, Dyanna Dayne of Starfall),
and Aegon’s son Jaeherys II.

This certainly wouldn’t escape
either Doran’s or Elia’s notice, especially since Doran was 12 or 13 at
the time of the War of the Ninepenny Kings and already being groomed for
ruling. Recent history shows the threat an acknowledged, noble-mothered
Targaryen bastard raised in court can pose to a Dornish-friendly, and
later to Dornish-blooded, monarchs. Picking Lyanna in particular
increases the risk since the Starks come with ties to the Tullys and the
Arryns which means that Lyanna and whatever kids she ends up having
would have a pretty powerful bloc in their corner. That’s too much of a
risk for Elia to approve of. With the Starks, Tullys and Arryns at his
back, a son of Lyanna’s could trouble Aegon or try to supplant him, and
Lyanna herself could easily replace Elia. Why would Elia be okay with
that risk? For the prophecy? She did know about the prophecy but that
doesn’t
necessarily

mean that she believed it or was invested in fulfilling it like Rhaegar. [..]

Any conversation about Rhaegar’s actions and Elia’s position wrt them
can not discount or dismiss the public humiliation he forces on
her for no reason whatsoever, or what that implies about her political
position.
Starting from Harrenhal, passing Elia for Lyanna means that Rhaegar is
sending a very public message that Elia is lacking in his eyes and
validates the racism and ableism of every douchebag
who thought her unworthy of the crown prince or less of a woman
because of the color of her skin or her delicate health.

Which really hurts her place in his future court. Because Elia isn’t
just a princess of Dorne, she is the crown princess and the future queen
of the Seven Kingdoms, and what Rhaegar does compounds the insult his father
dealt her at Rhaenys’ birth by first demeaning her in front of the
biggest possible gathering of
lords at Harrenhal, then leaving her while vulnerable and sick to his
father’s whims. Rhaegar really
damages Elia’s political image by his actions and sends a message about
what her importance and worth in his court would be.

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@lyannas

replied to your post

“@riana-one
replied to your post “tfw someone hails Rhaegar for…”

i’m actually writing a meta rn about anti-dornish racism and i’ve made the point that while some dornish do have paramours, the westerosi have the EXACT SAME THING, except they call them “mistresses” and like to pretend that they don’t exist

Yep. The only difference is that these women are not typically treated like lesser than dirt in Dorne and their children aren’t best kept out of sight and out of mind like the rest of the Westerosi do. To think that some are fond of claiming that Dorne accepts adultery as a way of life simply because they treat women and bastards as human beings….

I’ll also add that having a paramour does not necessarily mean adultery. A paramour is a lover taken outside the bonds of marriage but not necessarily as a mistress on the side for a married noble. Oberyn was not married, neither was Arianne or Lewyn Martell. They had paramours but they were not cheating so to use the argument that Dorne permits paramour as evidence that they were fine with adultery or that Elia was fine with Rhaegar impregnating Lyanna has no basis. Sexual relationships outside of marriage is acceptable in many countries IRL, but that does not mean that a person would automatically be okay with their partner cheating. That’s silly and minimizing. It restricts faithfulness to marriage and marriage alone, and treats monogamy as a practice for married people only. It’s the same thing in asoiaf. The Dornish can take lovers without marriage, but this is not an automatic cultural allowance of adultery.

@riana-one
replied to your post “tfw someone hails Rhaegar for preparing for the Others and you’re like…”

I love Rhaegar apologists. The ones who argue it wasn’t statutory rape or try and say Elia was ok with it. Being humiliated, held hostage, and left behind with a psychotic father in law but she was Dornish. They are cool with affairs. *vomits*

She is Dornish is hands-down my favorite argument. It’s always presented as such a strong piece of conclusive evidence that the whole thing is honestly treated as a foregone conclusion nowadays, even though the entire argument is built on stigmatization and racist headcanons that don’t make a lick of sense in the context of Westerosi society. But whatever works to make Rhaegar smell like roses and sunshine, I guess.

zed-azrael:

talking about 9/11 with white people is literally one of the most frustrating things ever because they won’t stop talking about their experiences (even if nothing happened to them personally), and when i, a middle eastern person, try to contribute to the conversation, i can’t get a fucking word in.

like what the fuck, nothing happened to you on that day – which, you know, thank goodness – so why the fuck do you insist on dominating the conversation? my daily life is still being effected by this even now, over ten years later.

but you’re not interested in hearing about how my fifth grade health teacher never again called on me or the arab girl in my class. you’re not interested in how whenever my family travels, all fourteen of us (a number that used to include young children) get “randomly” searched. you’re not interested in the fact that when i was asked to buy a propane tank for a barbecue, i spent the rest of the day stressed out and worried that the attendants at all the stores visited to inquire were all going to think i was making explosives (all stores in the neighborhood mysteriously were out of propane tanks in the middle of summer). you’re not interested in the fact that whenever my cousin prepares to fly on his own, his mother calls him to make sure he’s clean shaven so he doesn’t look “like a terrorist.” you’re not interested in the fact that when i was you’re not interested in the fact that i once witnessed a whole family of white people bypass the x-ray scanner for the old fashioned metal detector, but when i asked for the same treatment, i was denied; when i pointed out the (many) signs claiming that i had the right to refuse going through that machine, the tsa agent who mere seconds earlier berated me for my request went conveniently deaf. you’re not interested in hearing about how my sister was told “sorry about your leader” when osama bin laden was killed.

i could reference personal anecdotes until i went blue in the face.

there are countless people who have stories like this, stories that are grotesque and demeaning and terrifying. these are everyday occurrences.

but you’re not interested in any of that. frankly, you’re not even that interested when middle eastern and muslim (and sometimes non-muslim desi) people are subjected to extreme violence or killed. you guys got over chapel hill pretty damn fast. if you noticed it at all.

you don’t give a fuck about us, or our ongoing 9/11 stories. you just want to tell me about how horrible it was, sitting in class and listening to other kids get their names called on the pa system.

but i totally get it. it was really hard for you.