Let me just get the spoiler out of the way before we continue – everyone is going to die in A Song of Ice and Fire. We can now safely proceed.
Fellow readers, I come to write about Rhaegar, not to praise him. Rhaegar Targaryen is the purple-eyed heir to the Iron Throne until... well, until George RR Martin pulls a George RR Martin and suddenly there’s blood everywhere.
A character from a series of books by Martin which inspired the incredibly successful television show Game of Thrones, Rhaegar might not be the dreamy prince many fans make him out to be.
An armada of Tumblr intelligentsia in particular, and the rest of the Internet in general, is addicted to the mystery that is Rhaegar Targaryen.
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All that we know of him is through opinions of other characters. He is the son of the ‘mad king’ Aerys Targaryen, married to a princess of a powerful kingdom, Elia of Dorne, and the lover/abductor (depending on the side you are rooting for) of the 14-year-old Lyanna Stark – of course the perfect concoction for a fairy tale.
The last bit, the love story of Rhaegar and Lyanna Stark, is predominantly one of the most romanticised aspects of the series.
The books barely mention the two until the reader has managed to reach the latter parts of the series. Even as far as Rhaegar’s character is concerned, the series offers few snippets. However, they are just enough to deploy a dedicated army of both loyal Rhaegar fans and their counter forces.
Rhaegar is described as being “bookish to a fault”, until one day when “Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning...and said, ‘I will require sword and armour. It seems I must be a warrior.’”
I, as a responsible member of the fandom, would like to maintain that this is a reference to the prophecy regarding the ‘prince that was promised’, a notion he eventually comes to obsess over.
On stumbling across on what could possibly be the prophesy, young Rhaegar comes to believe himself to be the ‘promised prince’. Hence begins his training as a warrior, an activity he was previously indifferent to.
However, soon the series introduces another idea.
“The dragon has three heads”, says the Targaryen prince to his wife in Daenerys’ vision in the House of the Undying.
We now see a Rhaegar who has stopped seeing himself as the “promised prince”, but expects his son to fulfil the prophecy (hello, parental pressure for baby Targaryen). But because the dragons has three heads, there has to be two more children (and marital pressure for mama Targaryen).
However, because Elia is unable to bear a third child, Rhaegar inadvertently has to look elsewhere. Cue: Enter Lyanna Stark.
At the Tourney of Harrenhall, Rhaegar gives the rose to Lyanna Stark, slighting his wife and the princess of an important house publicly. It might be a wonderful turn of events to make hearts all over for Lyanna-Rhaegar shippers, but Elia’s position in the equation is unease inducing.
Not to mention that Lyanna is a 14-year-old while Rhaegar is 23 (gross alert). Not to mention that it later stems a major war killing countless innocent people, including Elia, her two babies, Lyanna and Rhaegar himself. Not to mention the near-end of House Targaryen brought about by a flower Rhaegar could have very well given to his wife instead. So much for love.
Hypothetically speaking, Rhaegar was not a cruel, mad king like his father, and by the same premise, he certainly was not an abductor.
If he did not abduct Lyanna, she perhaps pulled a Sansa and confused a teenage romance for eternal love worthy of the risks she took. But putting the two characters together still remains a disturbing equation. Even if Rhaegar and Lyanna were in love, it was perhaps more like a coping mechanism for both of them.
A Song of Ice and Fire describes Rhaegar’s death in the following manner:
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.
The woman in these lines is often assumed to be Lyanna. If it was indeed her - it only points to a disturbing, twisted romance to say the least; one quite cruel to Elia.
However, if it wasn’t, then Martin has another interesting nugget up his sleeve which only time will reveal.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)