Saturday, July 29, 2017

[Main Spoilers]Rhaegar's Secret Coup

It is somewhat strange that Rhaegar had three Kingsguard sworn to him. Kingsguard are exactly that, a household guard to the king of the Iron Throne. As Aerys was still alive, these men were sworn to him. Now, it is not uncommon for a solitary Kingsguard to protect a royal family member in the event that they live outside of the capital, but three? This is extremely unorthodox.

Think about it. Aerys has become notoriously mad, craven, and exceedingly paranoid. Coupled with the fact that his realm is facing a massive rebellion, one would think that he would keep his Kingsguard close by.

Why then were three whitecloaks--men that Ned Stark regarded as the paragons of honor and duty even decades later-- sworn to the crown prince instead of the king? Why would they be commanded to stay behind to protect the crown prince's paramour and his bastard child?

It's quite possible that Rhaegar, who had long grown weary of his father's madness, was planning a coup. He had fallen in love with Lyanna Stark who had impressed him at the great tourney of Harrenhal when she donned the guise of "the Knight of the Laughing Tree" in order to protect her father's man, Howland Reed. The king, caught in the throes of his paranoia, sent out a band of soldiers to capture this rogue knight. Rhaegar, knowing the harm these soldiers were commanded to inflict on the knight, absconded with Lyanna to some safe haven, eventually heading southward to Dorne. Perhaps at some point along the way, they wed in secret, and therefore any progeny born from their union would be deemed legitimate in the eyes of gods and men.

It's quite possible that Arthur Dayne, Gerold Hightower, and Oswell Whent conceded that their king's madness was intractable and favored the crown prince as the rightful king. This being the case, they would favor the child of Rhaegar as the rightful heir over Rhaegar's young brother Viserys.

Everything happened so fast, and it is quite likely that neither Rhaegar nor Lyanna knew if they could trust a raven and the maesters who wield them to convey the intelligence of their escape to the Starks in Winterfell. Brandon, the Wild Wolf, upon learning of Lyanna's abduction, sped hastily to King's Landing to kill Rhaegar. But we don't really know how Brandon came to hear about Lyanna's abduction. The timeline concerning all these events is nebulous.

Obviously, Rickard Stark travelled to King's Landing to retrieve his son, but there they both met their respective ends. Aerys sent a raven to Jon Arryn in the Vale asking for the heads of Ned Stark and Lyanna's betrothed, Robert Baratheon. Arryn declined and thus the rebellion began.

Nearly a year later, after Robert slew Rhaegar at the Trident, after Jaime Lannister slew Aerys in the Red Keep, and after Ned's men defeated Dayne, Hightower, and Whent at the Tower of Joy...Ned discovered the truth. Lyanna and Rhaegar loved each other and had a son together, whom Ned had to now pass off as his own bastard in order to protect the child from the fate suffered by Rhaegar's other two children.

Decades later, when Ned's mind meanders into thoughts of Rhaegar, he finds himself considering a lost brother that he never had the chance to know. He feels no anger or resentment or disgust. He feels only sorrow and curiosity and wonder. When his mind shifts over to the brave whitecloaks who fought valiantly three against seven, he considers them with the highest praise and honor. Men who kept a secret because their liege commanded it. Men who protected a dying woman and her babe from her own brother because their liege commanded it. Men who died for a prince that was promised.

Like I said, the timeline for the events leading up to and including Rhaegar and Lyanna's elopement are still cloudy. Martin hasn't parted those clouds for us yet. But I cannot help but think that Rhaegar was not a licentious beast, trying to steal Robert's betrothed away from him. He was a man trying to protect a woman whose valor and strength he greatly admired--to protect her from his own father who had long since forewent the dignity of his crown. I cannot help but think that the events at Harrenhal moved Rhaegar to a long-gestating action: to remove his father from the Iron Throne.

The fateful and tragic consequence of Rhaegar's protection of Lyanna was that they could not get word to her family in time to prevent a rightfully rash brother from storming King's Landing.



Submitted July 29, 2017 at 07:12PM by loathspell http://ift.tt/2uJpuZa

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