See, I don’t agree with your reading of the function of Ned’s promise to Lyanna at all. I don’t think it’s there as a restraint on Ned’s actions that would have influenced the plot greatly had it not been made, but rather as a symbolic condensation of a lot of trauma and pain that Ned carried with him from the rebellion (and a sign of R+L= J). Ned agonizing over that promise had nothing to do with regretting that he made it; that’s him agonizing over the toll that promise took on his loved ones and his relationship with them. That promise meant Jon’s life. What part of Ned’s narrative could ever be read as him regretting that he saved Jon or being open to any option that endangered him? This is the guy who was willing to let Cersei go to save Joffrey, the one who was furious over the murder of Princess Elia and her children and the threat to Daenerys. There is no way he’d have chosen anything but to protect his nephew. Allowing the murder of children or willingly putting them in danger is anathema to Ned Stark and something we’ve seen him not only fighting against but putting himself on the line to prevent. Compassion is such a hallmark of Ned’s character that even thinking about him possibly not doing everything in his power to protect Jon, with or without the promise, is unfathomable to me. The links above encompasses a lot of my thoughts about this subject so I won’t repeat myself but I will say that I don’t think that Ned would have acted differently if Lyanna had not made him promise her. There is no other “bad choices”. Ned was always going to protect Jon because that’s the kind of man he is.
Tag: Anon asks
#so for a moment there my heart dropped to my feet when I saw this — duuuude, same
I can always be counted on to pass on my panic to my followers. Follow at your own peril!
Do you think that because of how much the Ryswells and Dustins hate the Starks, Ned should have trusted William and Mark? House Ryswell and House Dustin are the first to declare for the Boltons. It seems odd how William and Mark go from being among the most loyal and trusted of Ned to their houses being the most hateful and hellbent on destroying Ned/the Starks. If there really is a Stark restoration (not that I think that’s happening), their houses will survive or even should survive to rule?
It is far from accurate to claim that Houses Ryswell and Dustin hate the Starks or are hellbent on destroying them. It is Barbey Dustin that has a personal grudge against Ned (and his father Rickard) but we have no reason to believe that her feelings were shared widely across the two houses or are indicative of some historical animosity that should have been taken into account by Ned. Ned named both Willam Dustin and Mark Ryswell friends and I’d be hard pressed to argue that he was mistaken or that he should not have trusted them when both died in defense of their lord and his sister, and when both probably shared personal relationships with Brandon Stark (Willam was his foster brother and Mark belonged to a house that routinely hosted the heir to Winterfell). Willam Dustin insisted on joining Robert’s Rebellion himself despite Barbrey begging him not to, something that she ascribes solely to his pride but I attribute also to his loyalty and connection to the Starks. I see now reason to devalue the sacrifice of good men when we have no evidence to doubt their sincerity or loyalty.
Regardless, I don’t think that the Ryswells or the Dustins harbor a special animosity towards the Starks. Barbrey isn’t even a Dustin by blood so I find it hard to speak of her as a source of information about how the Dustins feel when we are yet to meet a single Dustin. It is true that the house declared for the Boltons but
I don’t think it’s the enthusiastic agreement of its members that the broad
declaration of “the Dustins hate the Starks” imply. House Dustin
declared for the Boltons because its current ruling lady did, and it
seems like its main ruling branch was extinguished by Willam’s death
allowing Barbrey to rule instead. As for the Ryswells, Rodrik Ryswell was sure very welcoming to Brandon at one point and while that was tinged by self-interest, feudal politics unavoidably color personal relationships with a degree of self-interest in most cases. Even the most loyal of the Stark bannermen are still playing the political game and looking for favors so that’s not a knock on the Ryswells in and of itself. Furthermore, I didn’t get any strong feelings from either of Barbrey’s brother wrt the Starks and it sure sounded like their siding with the Boltons was simply a matter of their interests currently lying with them rather than any strong negative feelings towards the Starks. So perhaps they might not be particularly loyal but I don’t think they are particularly hateful either. They certainly have no forgotten the Freys’ involvement in the Red Wedding and that they lost people there. They are just going with where the current wind blows and that happens to be with the Boltons right now (which I predict will change because I also don’t think the Ryswells are all that loyal to Roose either and definitely not to Ramsay. The upcoming showdown with Stannis should see a lot of shifting loyalties as the pro-Stark northmen defect and turn on the Boltons and Freys. I suspect the Ryswells and Barbrey will follow suit).
That said, I really don’t think it’s a coincidence that there is a force of northmen that Roose left behind in the Riverlands whose whereabouts are currently unknown, a force that just happens to include spearmen from the Rills and men from House Stout which is sworn to House Dustin, under the command of Ronnel Stout who shares an undetermined relation to Harwood Stout who hosted Roose Bolton in Barbrey’s name. Those men should have a role at one point.
Lastly…
If there really is a Stark restoration (not that I think that’s
happening), their houses will survive or even should survive to rule?
Oh, a Stark restoration is happening. Even if we put aside all the foreshadowing in the Starklings’ arcs that points straight to Winterfell, we still have the North remembers and the fact that Jojen dreamed that “the wolves will come again”. The very history of the North and of the Starks’ role in the fight against the Others demands that a Stark hold Winterfell during the War for the Dawn. Winterfell was built as an engine to fight the Others and we continually hear that there must always be a Stark in Winterfell, all while the Starks historically take on the mantle of being both protectors and providers for their people. Gosh, even Tyrion knows that the Lord of Winterfell would always be a Stark. Also, consider what he says of Winterfell’s godswood.
He remembered their godswood; the tall sentinels armored in their
grey-green needles, the great oaks, the hawthorn and ash and soldier
pines, and at the center the heart tree standing like some
pale giant frozen in time. He could almost smell the place, earthy and
brooding, the smell of centuries, and he remembered how dark the wood
had been even by day. That wood was Winterfell. It was the north. I
never felt so out of place as I did when I walked there, so much an
unwelcome intruder. He wondered if the Greyjoys would feel it too. The
castle might well be theirs, but never that godswood. Not in a year, or
ten, or fifty.
Now Bran.
The stone is strong, Bran told himself, the roots of the trees go deep,
and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as
those remained, Winterfell remained
A castle built by a Stark for the specific purpose of fighting the Others with a name that denotes their downfall and whose survival Bran directly ties to the Kings of Winter. A godswood that has been pretty much described as the heart of the entire North and that offers access to the weirwood network of greenseers, the last of whom is a Stark (whose face and voice were carried through the heart tree in both dreams and reality). A house whose entire existence is intrinsically tied to the magical war and to the survival of the North, to safety and order in the North according to the Liddle that meets Bran and co. That’s too much history and symbolism that necessitate a Stark restoration. It is happening. The story demands it.
Don’t you think you’re making elia too submissive by having her be solely a victim of rhaegar? If you like her than you should want her to have some culpability in rhaegar’s plans as it’d give her agency. She was a viper she must’ve played the game too. If she hadn’t then why would she be staying in King’s landing. I think she saw the importance of his actions and agreed to handle aerys In his absence. If it turns out that she encouraged him to take another consort it’d give her a spine, no?
I do not see the correlation between being a victim and being
submissive, neither do I think that only submissive people can get
victimized. Not only does this fundamentally misunderstands how trauma, abuse and power dynamics work, but it implicitly puts blame on the
victim in a roundabout way. It ascribes negatively-coded attributes to victims and
derails the conversation to be about some idealized standard for how a
victim should behave so that they wouldn’t be victims. It puts the
responsibility of the prevention of the abuser’s actions on the abused which heavily overlaps with the dichotomy of good victim/bad victim. I really, really hate that argument in all its shapes and forms, regardless of how it’s being used and who it’s being used with.
As far as agency goes, I
understand fandom’s need for Elia to have some kind of agency in her story and I share the frustration that so far she has been mostly used as a plot device in a male character’s story. I just don’t think that arguing that Elia was “culpable” (wth?!) in Rhaegar’s actions accomplishes that. The very act used to supposedly give Elia agency actually diminishes her character
on both personal and political fronts. It is built on a bizarre belief that Elia
must have believed in the prophecy and in Rhaegar’s quest. But no one seems to give me any logical explanation to why she’d do that all while ignoring that this baseless assumption inadvertently implies that people think that Elia believed in the prophecy simply because Rhaegar did. The idea that Elia supported Rhaegar’s action is based on a frankly perplexing dismissal of history (this is about Lyanna but 1 and 2 apply to Elia as well) and
politics which in turns implies that Elia was either weirdly apolitical
or weirdly ignorant. Why would Elia endanger herself and her children like?
Because reasons.
I don’t see how having Elia’s character solely revolve around the primacy of Rhaegar’s opinions
and wants gives her agency.
I don’t see how turning Elia into a person who
mindlessly parroted Rhaegar’s beliefs and careless singleminded pursuit
of the prophecy right into a civil war gives her agency. I guess I find it more productive for arguments of
Elia’s agency for us to treat her as a person with her own mind and her
own set of beliefs that’s not reliant on what her husband believed. I
like to think she had the agency to have thoughts and opinions that are not blindly reflective of Rhaegar’s.
Or Oberyn’s for that matter since his example is often what drives theories that Elia was fine with Rhaegar absconding with Lyanna. Because Elia was a viper and she played the game. Except 1) she wasn’t. Oberyn is the Red Viper. Elia is a separate person from him.
The conflation of the two and of their personalities and opinions are a facet of the stereotyping of Dornish culture that treats Elia as beholden to Oberyn’s actions and
outlook as if Oberyn is the Representative of Dornish Culture. But Elia is her own person. I don’t know why this is a
radical statement in fandom.
2) the game that you are adamant that Elia was playing is actually what makes me reject the idea that Elia supported Rhaegar’s affair with Lyanna. History, politics, danger to her children and everything I’ve honestly talked ad nauseam about to the point where I’ve grown tired of it.
Too, I question how it came to be that having a spine became tied to Elia “encouraging” Rhaegar to have an affair, not only for the reasons listed above that fly in the face of that but also…. are we now acting like acceptance of adultery is a baseline for “having a spine”? Why is it that Elia, contrary to all the women in Westeros, needs to not simply accept but welcome being cheated on to prove vigorousness or proactivity? How does it give Elia a spine to passively accept public humiliation, become a willing participant in a situation that has historically proven perilous
to half-Dornish monarchs, and support and “encourage” her own political authority being compromised for no reason whatsoever? Do you honestly think that’s logical? That’s playing the game to you? For Elia to go against her own interests and that of her children’s by supporting
Rhaegar taking a highborn mistress with the
explicit purpose of having a child on her. As if the Blackfyre rebellions weren’t a thing. As if that’s proof that she had a spine.
Frankly anon, I’m scratching my head over the contradiction in your
message. You act like saying that Elia was a victim of Rhaegar makes her
submissive, but seem to argue that her passively accepting an insult
after another to enthusiastically make way to Rhaegar absconding with
another woman is the epitome of agency and proactive behavior. She is a capable political actor and a partner in Rhaegar’s plans that she goes to King’s Landing to stave off Aerys, but also an ignorant woman who saw nothing wrong with being put in danger alongside her children for the sake of the prophecy. She is a viper, except when she is being happily cheated on. She is playing the game, except when she is
enthusiastically
inviting a huge political risk to her doorstep. She is culpable in Rhaegar’s actions because she has a spine, except when she doesn’t care about being needlessly humiliated in public. Pick a person, please. This is giving me whiplash.
I highly doubt Rhaegar actually thought this far ahead, but what do you think his plan was/would’ve been for raising his child with Lyanna? (Let alone Lyanna herself post-baby…) Do you think his previous abhorrent behavior towards Elia suggests he might’ve raise the illegitimate child alongside Aegon and Rhaenys? (Sorry if you’ve answered something similar and feel free to ignore! I tend to agree with your interpretation of Rhaegar so I was curious what you thought).
I’ve sat on this question and similar ones for the longest of time because I simply don’t have a proper answer as to what Rhaegar’s plan was. Mostly I’m ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Like you, I don’t think he had a plan. His impulsive and careless approach to his affair with Lyanna combined with the currently mysterious haste he was in leads me to think he did not think that far. The priority was to complete the three heads of the dragon now and then think of the consequences later.
But you raise an interesting question about the possibility of Rhaegar intending to raise his child with Lyanna at court which is something I’ve pondered before. It’s certainly possible. I’ve flirted before with the idea that Rhaegar might have entertained the thought that he was needed on the throne as an organizing principle for the War for the Dawn and as a prophetic guide for the three heads of the dragon. If so, I can see Rhaegar hoping to raise his children together so as to build a strong relationship between them and to give them the proper education for the prophetic saviors they were. For such a prophecy-oriented individual, training and educating the three heads on their magical destiny and responsibility would be an important priority and I definitely do not think Rhaegar entertained the thought of sending Lyanna on her merry way with his child, not when said child was immeasurably important to him to the point of causing a scandal at Harrenhal followed by a political crisis. As for where that leaves Elia, well, Elia fell to the very bottom on the list of Rhaegar’s priorities in his single-minded pursuit of the prophecy and I don’t expect that would change.
But it’s worth noting that we don’t know what Rhaegars reaction to Jon would be. If the theory that Rhaegar was trying to recreate the three conquerors with his children is correct, Jon’s gender would throw a wrench in his plans and I really can’t say how he’d react to it. It could be anything from reconsidering his conclusions wrt the prophecy and his children’s place in it to shrugging off Jon’s existence with the thought that, Idk, Orys Baratheon existed or something, and trying for another ice-based child – a girl this time – with Lyanna. I don’t think he’d change his mind about Aegon being the prince who was promised regardless because the symbolism of the comet during his conception is fairly strong, and I question if Rhaegar might be led to apply the heralds of the prince that was promised to the other two heads as well – after all, Rhaenys was also born amidst salt and smoke so perhaps, to Rhaegar’s mind, Jon being the wrong gender can be attributed to the circumstances and location of his birth in Dorne lacking that – and react by shipping Lyanna to Dragonstone so that the next child would share the circumstances of her eldest brother and sister’s birth. I am, of course, ignoring every other facet of the plot right now and pretty much shooting darts in the dark using nothing but conjecture. But I guess it’s something to chew on in lieu of just ¯_(ツ)_/¯ .
It annoys me that Rhaenys the Queen Who Never Was gets dismissed so steadily. She was third in line for the throne until her father’s death. Than whoops Succession Crisis What About Rhalla and Aerea!?! That problem would have still been there if Aemon lived and taken the throne. So why is Jaehaerys betraying his granddaughter so applauded? The Great Councils did nothing but kick the problem down the generations.
First thing I want to point out here is that I don’t think that Jaehaerys passing over Rhaenys in succession is applauded, at least not from what I’ve seen? What I’ve seen is explanations that offer a more nuanced reasoning beyond Jaehaerys simply being a misogynistic jerk who thought women shouldn’t rule. It might be that Jaehaerys’ decision did derive from a degree of misogyny – Queen Alysanne certainly seemed to think if the Second Quarrel is anything to judge by, but I personally like to think there is a deeper reason because this move shows uncustomary behavior from Jaehaerys. Certainly the guy who made policy changes on the recommendation of his queen and who actively demonstrated political trust in her to where it was said that she ruled the realm as much as he did doesn’t seem likely to pass over his granddaughter simply due to her gender. It also stands to reason that the political partnership of Jaehaerys and Alysanne was likely informed by the crucial political role their mother Alyssa Velaryon and their eldest sister Rhaena played in saving the Targrayen dynasty after Aenys’ weak rule and Maegor’s brutality threatened to do it in, and in winning Jaehaerys his throne in the first place. It is only by the action, bravery and (personal and political) sacrifice of two women that Jaehaerys was coronated in the first place, and Queen Alyssa then held the realm together in the aftermath of war and huge instability for two years till Jaehaerys reached his majority. That the three most prominent women in Jaehaerys’ life were all such active and astute political actors who not only shaped his life but also his reign makes me think there has to be more to his decision to pass over Rhaenys than just prejudice. I also think there could be thematic resonance to Jaehaerys’ decision to bypass his grandaughter’s rights to stave off instability paralleling his sister’s Rhaena’s own decision to bypass her daughters’ rights for a similar reason, and how that juxtaposes against the rampant selfishness of the two sides of the Dance of the Dragons.
Another point of discussion is why concerns about Rhalla and Aerea’s lines only emerged after Aemon’s death and why hadn’t Jaehaerys acted before. That part is a bit hard to discern because we don’t know what Prince Aemon and Jocelyn Baratheon’s fertility history was like. Rhaenys was their only daughter but it is possible that they had either conceived again or at least were trying to since producing a male heir was widely seen as securing the line of succession in a way that a female heir wasn’t. If Aemon and Jocelyn conceived again after Rhaenys or even had children who died in infancy, the issue of the claim of Rhalla and Aerea’s line might not have seemed as dire since there was still hope that Aemon, who was only in his thirties when he died, would have a son, something that was soundly lost with his death. So it might not be necessarily true that concern about his nieces’ lines only came to Jaehaerys’ mind after Aemon’s death as much as that Aemon’s death made Rhaenys’ succession a matter of course which in turn made the possibility of conflicting rival claims to the throne more real prompting Jaehaerys to take action to settle the matter.
As for the Great Council, certainly it is one of the dark ironies of the series that Jaehaerys’ speculated attempt to get ahead of a possible succession debate and war ends up being used to inspire the biggest civil war in Targaryen history. But that’s to blame on Viserys I’s laziness and refusal to deal with the complicated legalities of the succession during his reign rather than on the efficiency of a Great Council. The purpose of a Great Council was to put succession debates to a majority vote rather than the arbitrary choice of the king which is a pretty sound political and legal move all things considered. That’s a solid solution since it decides succession by the will of the vassals over whom the king claimed the right to rule while establishing a body of authority to decide matters of succession allowing for such debates to be settled peacefully and curtailing possible wars. That Viserys I chose to overcomplicate succession by not only ignoring the legal argument that put him in power in the first place when naming his daughter heiress but also by refusing to settle a painfully obvious succession debate in which the two legal precedents clashed is to be blamed on him rather than the Great Council or Jaehaerys I. Viserys set the stage for the Dance by unnecessarily making an already complicated legal matter worse, ignoring the blatant bad blood between the blacks and the greens then stupidly setting the greens up with all the authority they needed to force the issue. Viserys is the one who kicked the problem down a generation while offering no alternate solution and taking no decisive action to settle the matter peacefully. Putting the blame of that on either Jaehaerys or the Great Council exonerates Viserys from much of his ineptitude and willful inaction.
The way you and your friends behave is the reason why I was and I am anonymous. You attack on groups and target one person.
I’m assuming you’re responding to this? Read it again. Go ahead. Because I personally don’t see how this could be misunderstood to be about simple anonymity rather than anonymous hate. I have no problem with anonymity otherwise I’d just turn the feature off. My problem is when people use the plausible deniability that feature grants them to claim that I’m sending these messages to myself. That no one in X fandom misbehaves and it’s all made up by me and other fans who happen to defend the same character. That certain prejudices against a character absolutely does not exist but if I provide examples, it gets flat out denied using the claim that I’m the one who constructed the whole sham.
Do you see the issue here? I’m supposed to provide evidence that I get hate and messages that are transparently prejudiced against a character, but those who claim it’s all made up are not held to the same standard and the misuse of a tumblr feature gets used to discredit me.
Honestly though, are you actually trying to imply that I am the reason I’m getting hate? I didn’t start this argument. I am not the one calling another a liar or delusional. Someone disagrees with my opinion? That’s cool. It’s even cool that they don’t try to engage me personally and just post about that disagreement on their own blog. God knows I’ve done the same before. But I’m entitled to respond when someone insults me and dismisses my experience in this fandom just because it does not match theirs. It is preposterous that you’re now trying to make this my fault and framing it as an attack on one person. So they can call me names but I can’t defend myself and if I do, then I’m a bully. What a fantastic logic.
Finally, let me address that part about how “me and my friends” attack on groups and target one person. First of all, I can only be held accountable for my own behavior in fandom. You can’t come to my inbox to blame me because somewhere someone who defends the same character as me behaved badly. Second, I’m not sure what you mean by attacking groups or even targeting one person because other than the interaction a couple of days ago, most of my engagement in fandom is either with mutuals or anons. Besides the occasional discussion with a mutual, most of my discussions about any given subject consists of people coming to me with it. Of people actively engaging me by sending me messages about a certain subject or commenting on my posts. That entitles me to a response. But like, when have I targeted one person or attacked any group? I often use the broad term of “fandom” in my discussion and try to avoid naming any subset as much as I could, and when I do, it is always based on interactions I’ve had and not one some vague notion of “they are bad and we’re good”. Is this about the racist thing? I’d apologize but I don’t think anyone is entitled to an apology when an argument is racist. I’ve explained why it is racist. I’ve linked to where I’ve thoroughly went over it piece by piece. Instead my words were brushed off and outright willfully constructed and I received a slew of ad
hominem
attacks. Are we going to pretend that pointing out a prejudice against a character or in an argument is the same as calling someone a liar and delusional, or self-loathing and petty like that oh-so-friendly anon? Is that what we’re doing now? Watch me as I have no sympathy to their so-called victimhood.
The funny thing is that I logged in today with the intent to make a post about my desire to just forget those unpleasant wanky interactions in response to several messages I got wrt them because I didn’t want this to devolve anymore than it already had. I was going to shut conversation on this subject. I still intend to. But I’m not going to allow for this to be put on me.
How do you think Tywin would have reacted if Joanna died gave birth to a Tyrion without dwarfism? Do you think Tywin’s hatred would have been as strong or taken a different form? (I’m not going to ask how different Tyrion would be if he was born able-bodied. His dwarfism so fundamentally affects how he interacts with the world and vise-versa that the only answer really would be “not Tyrion.”) And forget about the story implications for ASOIAF).
I definitely do not think Tywin’s hatred would have been as strong if Joanna died birthing an able-bodied child or that he’d be so convinced that the baby killed Joanna. Thinking about Tywin’s possible reaction here made me think
of Tywin’s mother and how her death was also connected to childbirth.
The parallel isn’t perfect since Lady Jeyne Marbrand didn’t die in
childbirth but instead within a moon’s turn of birthing Gerion, but the
association between her death and Gerion’s birth is still there so this might still be a
useful reference to have when trying to hypothesize what Tywin’s reaction
would be. Tywin’s relationship with Gerion was notoriously stormy but I
personally think this was more because of Gerion’s tendency to mock
everything when Tywin had such a complicated relationship with laughter. We were never given the impression that Tywin held Gerion to blame for his mother’s death though. It might be because Tywin wasn’t as involved in the aftermath of his mother’s
death since he was already serving as a page in
King’s Landing at the time or that his resentment at the time was wholly focused on Tytos and his actions in the aftermath of Lady Jeyne’s death. Which is why I think that for Tywin the negative association between a baby’s birth and his mother’s death would be far heavier in Tyrion’s case than in Gerion’s but definitely no way near what occurred in OTL.
Perhaps the biggest difference would result from how an able-bodied son wouldn’t incur a widespread ridicule like in canon or bring forth all of Tywin’s issues so strongly. There would still be abuse because Tywin abused all his children to varying extents, and the association between his youngest’s birth and his own beloved wife’s
death might be too strong for Tywin to ever feel for his second son the way he
felt for Jaime
so I can see Tywim still pressuring an able-bodied Tyrion and emotionally abusing him until he proved his worth. But that might relatively abate if his youngest grew up to be as martially minded as Jaime and thus fit the masculinity culture of Westeros and Tywin’s own standards of acceptability.
Genna Lannister remarked in canon that Tyrion was
the most like Tywin which is definitely prone to tickle Tywin’s fancy if Tyrion is able-bodied. That hypothetical second son would be incredibly smart, potentially martially able and probably as capable as canon Tyrion which lends itself to the image of a healthy spare and that neatly solves Tywin’s problems of lacking an acceptable heir following Jaime’s Kingsguard indoctrination (though I think he’d still prefer Jaime as his heir, he might not be as obsessed or bullheaded about it). So while I don’t think Tywin would ever be kind towards his youngest, he’d probably find in him a far acceptable son and heir than in canon where Tyrion’s disability heavily overshadowed any good quality in Tywin’s eyes, though Joanna’s death would probably always be in the way of full acceptance no matter what.
Where is it written that rhaegar was forced to marry Elia?
Nowhere. By and large this argument seems to have been engendered by the thought that there is no way that Rhaegar had willingly accepted to marry a brown disabled/chronically ill woman so he must have been forced to (which is where this came from). It also appears that there is a subset of fandom that is basing this on the fact that arranged marriages inherently undermines agency ergo every arranged marriage is forced. But I have no idea why they choose to apply this to Rhaegar only and act as if that was Elia’s fault and so she had to bear the consequences. And I’ve argued before that we have to distinguish between the regular Westerosi arranged marriage (like Ned and Cat) and instances where one of the parties -usually the woman- was actively and deliberately forced into the marriage (like Lysa and Jon Arryn). Otherwise we’d be calling 99% of marriages in Westeros forced which in turn normalizes the truly coerced ones.
On a related note, people who bring up the case of “Rhaegar was forced into marriage and thus had a right to get out of it” often operate on
the false equivalency that this is similar to instances where
women want to get out of their betrothals or marriages. It is not. The politics of arranged marriage and how it limits free agency is a whole different beast when it comes to women, since it treats their very bodies as a commodity to bargain over. Women are taught that giving access to their bodies is a duty and Westeros enforces a power dynamic that heavily favors men and grants them a sexual agency that the women lack by and large, that gives men power over their wives. That puts the power of choice in the hands of men. A man can be made to marry someone but he can not be made to consummate the marriage. If he chooses not to, his wife can not compel him to. The opposite simply isn’t true. Men still have power even in situations where they are subject to the political power of others. They have options. Women don’t.
A regular higborn maiden is still subject to her husband’s sexual
choices. He gets to control her fertility. He gets to have conventional
rights to her body and her uterus. He gets to decide if and when they
have sex. He gets to have extramarital affairs with no repercussions.
Women who rail against their marriages are literally fighting for their bodily autonomy. For the right to decide what happens to their bodies. For their actual wellbeing.
Rhaegar isn’t the one disadvantaged by the patriarchy and Westerosi mores. Elia is. Rhaegar was supposedly forced into marriage? He could have chosen not to consummate it or father two children back-to-back heedless of Elia’s health considerations. He could have chosen to have a discreet mistress so as not to incur a political crisis or humiliate Elia so publicly. He didn’t. He chose to have Elia birth his prophetic figures. He chose to use her kinsmen for support first against his father and then against the rebels. He used her body, her connections and her kinsmen for his own agenda then left her behind as he incited a war that put her in danger. Rhaegar wasn’t powerless in this situation. He had all the power. But he most certainly didn’t have the right.
Could have Daeron done anything to head off Daemon? Maybe send Aegor to the Faith/Citadel? Make sure Calla and the twins were fostered at court? It feels like the chicken and egg, trying to hedge a rebellion without justifying it.
It is a hard line to walk. You want safeguards but how much can you do before you’re the one actively inciting rebellion? The fact that there is an argument over whether Daeron contributed to Daemon’s decision to rebel by sending the Kingsguard to arrest him is a clear indication of the difficulty of finding a balance.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Daeron had many good options. Aegon IV’s machinations made even the simplest move a potential danger after he made Daemon an extremely potent rival so Daeron had to be very careful in how he acted towards him and the other Great Bastards. That flatout makes sending anyone to the FaithCitadelWall out of the question since that would be just the antagonist move that could inspire a rebellion. If it could be argued that the king was arbitrarily forcing his own kin into any of those orders “unprovoked”, it would be a rallying cry for all those who oppose him who would argue that the king is acting outside the feudal contract and perhaps even make claims of tyranny. Keep in mind that Daemon’s faction did use Daeron’s attempt to arrest Daemon as a cause for war in OTL and there is no reason that sending Aegor to one of these orders wouldn’t be used in the same way. Also, that could certainly be enough for Daemon to fear that Daeron would send him next to one of these orders in order to neutralize his claim which could end up what makes him rebel.
As for having Daemon’s children fostered at court, that is a politic approach that is not likely to antagonize Daemon, but it’s not without its downsides – it further advances Daemon’s social acceptability by having his line be court-raised same as Daeron’s own line, and puts them in a position that invites juxtaposing them against Daeron’s sons. Don’t forget that Baelor Breakspear’s Martell look attracted acrimony from those who resented the Dornish presence in court so I don’t imagine the presence of the presumably Valyrian-looking Blackfyre twins right there would do the royal family any favors. That said, fostering the twins is still be the most preventive but non-incendiary approach Daeron had despite the downsides. Daeron’s policy towards his
half-siblings was open-handed and he notably kept them close so fostering the twins would not look abnormal while it gives Daeron a useful leverage against Daemon and the chance to raise Daemon’s two immediate heirs to be loyal to their royal uncle and his heir.
That doesn’t make it impossible for Daemon to rebel mind you – the Blackfyre rebellion took place when the twin were 12 so Daemon could wait a few years till their fosterage ends or he could hope that the stigma against kinslaying, his brother’s peaceful nature,
and the affection he might have for his wards would stay Daeron’s hand from harming the twins. The fosterage doesn’t neutralize Aegor. Doesn’t remove Quentyn Ball or whatever resentment Daemon harbored. But it might make it harder to rebel, especially if his two immediate heirs don’t want to be a part of his cause which inherently damages his movement.
Sam speaks 