I think the standard fairly well supported theory on the whole thing is that the reason he did such a dishonourable thing is because he was driven to it.

It is established that he is willing to do what is necessary with the whole Rhaegar was bookish, music loving nerd until he reads something that persuades him he must be a warrior and then he turns up demanding sword, shield and armour since it is necessary for him to fight.

It is established that Rhaegar came to believe that he is fated to give birth to the Prince that was Promised. I think its theorised that after his marrying Elia he finds reason to believe that he needs to have children with a specific person and that Elia won't give him the necessary child. He chooses Lyanna because he comes to believe that she is Ice to his Fire or something of the sort.

 

Wut.

/tenchar

 

Dragons lay eggs, duh.

 

I've clearly spent too long in the nether-reaches of the HP fandom, where MPREG is a recognised abbreviation for a genre.

You'll know that ASOIAF fanfic has reached saturation point when femNed gives birth to Rhaegar's bastard child and is never forgiven by ManCat for being such an unbearable slut.

 

Fuck you. Fuck you. Don't even joke about that.

Spoiler

And Rhaegar would obviously be the woman, you filthy heathen.

 

Just because he raped her doesn't mean he was a completely terrible person. It just puts into scope how much he valued the prophecies concerning the Song of Ice & Fire vis-a-vis the rights of this poor woman. One woman over all of Westeros? Rape time. After all, what's that saying about Targareyens? Madness and Greatness being two sides of the same coin? Maybe his madness developed differently, and it examplified itself in his obsession with fulfilling the prophecy.

That's be par for Martin, no?

 

Hmm, so Rhaegar raped Lyanna for the greater good? Interesting...

 

It occurs to me, that despite everything, when it comes to the greater good and prophecies, Harry really should consider himself lucky.

 

Thank Merlin this is a slash-free area or people would - wait, what am I saying? There are probably dozens of stories where Harry is raped for the greater good.

 

I think it's generally accepted that Rhaegar slept with Lyanna because the dragon must have three heads and Elia was too frail to give birth to a third child. Whether he took Lyanna by force or not, I'm not so sure. I tend to think not, though.

 

The seed being strong refers to House Baratheon, whose children, as Jon Arryn discovered, were all dark-haired despite many, many marriages into other houses; Robert's grandmother was a Targ, even, yet they were all dark-haired. House Stark also has dominant dark hair, just not to that extent; Sansa, Robb, and Rickon all favor the Tully side.

There are many examples of Targaryens throughout history without their trademark silver-gold hair and violet eyes, largely due to marriages with the Martells.

Elia and Rhaegar had two children, Rhaenys, who had the Dornish look to her, and Aegon, who looked Targ.

Baelor Breakspear had the look of his Martell mother, and his son Valarr had his dark looks as well, Daeron the Drunken had brown hair, etc.

One of the reasons they practice incest is that it helps to preserve their recessive gene. They also marry into other Valyrian houses, such as House Velaryon.

If any of you are as into the history as I am, check out my podcast. There's a poll there, if you have any suggestions as to a future topic.

TL;DR
The seed is only crazy strong with House Baratheon.

 

.....Maester Ash?

 

One step ahead of you!

 

I'd be fairly amused if it turned out that Rhaegar wanted a second Daughter. Instead he got Jon and was going to end up with a incestuous devil's threesome rather than the standard variant he was going for.

with regards to the Aegon thing, I'm actually rather partial to the idea that he's the Blackfyre heir and Varys and his friend are the descendants of the two headed guy. thus he has plenty of inbreeding for his purple eyes ect.

As for the Better Sword, I read it because I like those sorts of stories, but I wouldn't say it's great. It's not bad either but it's below average. A lot of the broader events largely play out like they do in canon, and the ones that don't felt really sloppy and jammed in because that's what happened in the books and the author felt they had to be in the fic too.

I'm following it, but i'm not expecting anything especially amazing. Still the last few chapter shave been better than the middle by a huge margin so maybe there is hope.

I'd give it a 2 currently.

 

When I was reading The North Remembers and I got to that part and read the Blackfrye bit (I think the chapter was Arianne spying on Aegon) it just sorta clicked in my head and I was like, "Gasp, Varys Targaryen! Even though his name wouldn't necessarily be Targaryen..."

 

Aegon & Varys both might be too young or too old to be descendants of Maelys, especially considering he had contemporaries like Hoster Tully & Barristan Selmy and Petyr Baelish's dad. Well, maybe just Aegon. I'm not quite sure when Varys entered the service of the Targarereyns.

I wouldn't say no to Aegon being a descendant of one of the daughters of House Blackfyre. If only because it's always struck me as ridiculous a women's children couldn't inherit her name and I'd love the irony of that. But then, I've often done matrilineal marriages in CK2.

 

That's much closer to Martin's style of storytelling than the typical true love/star-crossed lovers theory that a significant portion of the fandom has. Plus, it would fit well with what we know of his character: tragically melancholy dude who is reclusive to the point where no one truly knows him and is obsessed with fulfilling a prophecy. Possibly to the point where he was crazy enough to kidnap and rape a highborn teenager to fulfill it.

I like the idea that Martin had multiple unreliable narrators (most of whom weren't very close to him) describing him as a suspiciously Sue-ish character only to reveal that he was the villain we were initially told he was and that he just had a different form of madness than his father. His brand of madness is more the Baelor the Blessed variety where he's hero worshiped and remembered mostly fondly yet completely cray cray.

I think he did want a second daughter. He already had Aegon and Rhaenys. All he needed was a Visenya to complete the original Targaryen trio.

 

Lulz, I just noticed chapter 2 to Ned Stark Lives Part 2 has been up since the 8th.

 

That's what I meant. off the top of my head after he was killed, Maelys' kids were all sold into slavery (that's right isn't it?). You have a generation of that, combined with the lot of them already spending years telling themselves that they're the ones meant to be siting on the throne, and realizing that a flat out invasion isn't the answer. Varys is gelded because it amuses who ever does it to 'unman' a child of one of the major houses of Westros ect ect. Eventually he meets up with Illyrio, the only other Blackfyre left/ the guy who marries one of the daughters and they (illyro and wife) have a son who looks just like a Targ. Varys moves to Westros per canon and when Tywin storms KL they have a chance to put a Blackfyre on the Throne.

Still I guess the telling thing will be when/ if the sword Blackfyre turns up. That makes more sense to me than being able to find a Targ looking kid in KL's on such short notice. Maybe if the child was shipped in from around Dragonstone but even then I find it pretty unlikely.

 

Of Dragons, Roses and a Second-Hand Match

This story is about the Tourney at Harrenhal from Lyanna and Ned's point of views, possibly extending into Robert's Rebellion (I'm only a third of the way through now). I was a bit apprehensive at first as I normally don't like prequels, but the story is very good. The author has a good grasp both of what happened at Harrenhal and of how the world is supposed to feel. Even though I know what most likely happens, the story just brings the entire thing to life in a believable way. Technically it is excellently written, and the characterizations are spot-on from what we know in ASoIaF. 4/5