Yeah, both the annulment and the marriage happened in Dorne. Which means that either Rhaegar set out from the start with the High Septon in tow which somehow no one knew about, or he sent for the High Septon once he made off with Lyanna, in which case I’d like to know who did he send, and how the disappearance of the High Septon went unnoticed in the capital for all that time?

Then we run into the most complicated aspect: on what grounds did the High Septon grant an annulment? Elia and Rhaegar’s marriage was consummated and legal, making it hard for it to qualify for annulment. It’s not impossible to annul a consummated marriage mind you: Tywin managed to get Tyrion and Tysha’s marriage annulled after consummation (probably by claiming fraud andor contesting Tyrion’s consent being that he was a minor and did not acquire his guardian’s permission, and giving some healthy bribes to ease any complications) Aegon V also tried to get Prince Duncan the Small to set Jenny of Oldstones aside, presumably after the marriage was consummated, so that suggests that there are some grounds that permit the nullification of a consummated union
(or at least a divorce? This is where things get murky because GRRM says that divorce isn’t common in Westeros, which suggests that it could happen albeit rarely and under very exceptional circumstances, hence why we saw extreme actions like forcing a wife into nunnery or accusing her of adultery used to end a marriage or get rid of a wife. Perhaps this is where the distinction between setting a marriage and setting a wife aside emerges? The first is annulment but the second is a divorce? It’s worth noting, though, that we’ve never seen a divorce in the novels.)

or that perhaps a person with the right influence could pressure andor bribe either the High Septon or a Council of Faith to get an annulment to a consummated marriage.

But while Rhaegar would definitely have the clout that allows this to happen, two things stand in the way: 1) Unlike Tysha and Jenny, Elia Martell was a noblewoman, a princess of Dorne. It’s much easier to find some pretext to separate a prince from a commoner than it is to do it with a noblewoman, one who had done nothing to garner such a thing at that, and whose family would surely make a racket over the unprovoked and undeserved slight and political calamity, and 2) Unlike the two aforementioned marriages, Rhaegar and Elia’s produced two healthy children, one of whom was the heir to the throne after his father. Virtually no one would think to annul a marriage that produced heirs – an annulment means that Rhaenys and Aegon would be delegitimized, and removed from the line of succession entirely, which would make anyone extremely hesitant to annul the marriage and set such a dangerous precedent (and invite a future succession war). It also does not make sense that Rhaegar would want to make his Prince Who Was Promised a bastard when he was (I’ll be generous and say) primarily motivated by his quest for the third head of the dragon. Rhaegar thought that Aegon was the savior from the prophecy, heralded by a bleeding star and born on Dragonstone amidst salt and smoke; why in the old gods’ name would he want to make him a bastard in favor of Lyanna’s child whose role was to be supporting? That makes absolutely no sense.

Of course, there is also much and more to say about Rhaegar in such a scenario, which I don’t think the writers really noticed while writing that travesty of a storyline. This annulment thing paints Rhaegar in a much worse light than originally though: he was already barely balancing on the edge with Lyanna but this…. this means that he carelessly discarded Elia the second she ceased to be of importance for him (while she and his children by her were hostages of his father, no less), and then had the audacity to turn around and ask her kinsmen to fight to keep his throne. This means he deliberately deceived the Dornish and used Elia and the children to rob them to fight for him–to die for him–when he didn’t have the decency to show the smallest ounce of respect to the woman who risked her life to give him heirs, and threw her away as if she meant nothing for no reason whatsoever. This makes the situation with Elia and the children a per-meditated sacrifice; perhaps Rhaegar did not mean for his father to keep them as hostages, but he planned to sacrifice them for his own gain all the same. This surpasses the story of a prophecy-obsessed prince that was so focused on his three heads of the dragon that he acted carelessly and without thought to the people whose lives he impacted for a story about a cruelly calculating prince set on carelessly victimizing the wife he already put through hell, and the innocent children that should have been his to protect. That’s cruel and vile to the point of being inhuman.

But apparently, the writers thought we would cheer just because this means that Jon is legitimate? Screw that from now to eternity. That’s disgusting. They honestly think that this is a good story, that deliberately making Lyanna a replacement for Elia, and Jon for Aegon and Rhaenys, is something we’d be good with, that we’d be happy that their cheap romantic plot for Rhaegar and Lyanna furthered the dismissal of Elia and scapegoated her to the max. For the love of god, they did not even bother to say her name as if she was inconsequential to the plot because she was; the significance of that scene was solely about how Rhaegar was free to marry Lyanna and how Jon was legitimate. Elia was nothing but an obstacle in the way of that ~romantic narrative~ and now that the obstacle has been neutralized through a contrived annulment, what narrative importance could she possible hold to them? What possible importance could the entirety of Dorne hold to them? Dorne was only sexualized women and contrived revenge plots as far as they were concerned, and they can’t do either with the dead Elia, so forget about her, Elia who?

Oberyn Martell must be turning in his grave. Say her name, show. At least have the decency to acknowledge the personhood of the woman you screwed over so badly. Elia isn’t a mid-way ship in someone else’s love story, neither is she a mere obstacle that the romantic lead has to overcome before he gets his “One True Love” in reward, she is a person who deserves respect and recognition, who suffered tremendously because of the douchebaggery of Rhaegar, and who deserved better both from the in-universe characters, and from the narrative itself.

Elia Martell of Dorne. Say her name.