That's not textual evidence that Lyanna left willingly at all. That Ned is critical of Robert's promiscuity is not evidence of his tacit approval of the events surrounding Lyanna and Rhaegar. Ned is an honourable man. He dislikes Robert's lingering hatred of a dead man and he considers the killing of Rhaegar's children to have been a horrible thing committed by horrible people. That is not evidence that Lyanna left willingly or was abducted either way.

When Ned is thinking of the events, Martin writes "It was said that Rhaegar had named that place the tower of joy, but for Ned it was a bitter memory". The entire war is a sad memory for Ned where he lost friends and family and cruel acts were committed but that's more evidence that Ned has survivor's guilt or PTSD than anything else.

When I think of prophetic dreams in ASOIAF and the surrounding works, I think of Daeron Targaryen in The Hedge Knight. Daeron dreamed that a dragon would die and fall upon Dunk and feared that he was dreaming about himself being killed by Dunk and so he blamed Dunk for certain events that would have ended up with Dunk possibly being killed. Instead it led to Prince Baelor dying in Dunk's arms after Baelor stepped up to defend Dunk.

A dragon died in Dunk's arms but it wasn't Daeron but perhaps the most honourable knight in Westeros and a future King who would have brought stability and peace all thanks, in many ways, to Daeron being a fool who acted on his dreams. I'm of the opinion that almost everyone in ASOIAF who claim to have prophetic dreams or are told prophecies and decide to act upon them are idiots. Events never turn out how they expect them and the dreams are vague and often only come close to coming true because the fools who believe them act upon those beliefs to the detriment of those around them.

I don't disagree that Jon being raised in Essos similarly to (f)Aegon could potentially be an interesting story. It would have to be a reasonable scenario, however.

Likely the Daynes would remember the Peakes, the Coles, the Stricklands, the Butterwells and other noble houses that supported Targaryen bastards over the established rulers. They either had their wealth stripped of them, their lands seized, were forced into exile or a combination of all three.

It's extremely unlikely that the Tyrells would risk this. If Mace switched sides after bending the knee to Robert then he would have just as bad a reputation as Walder Frey and it's likely that half his bannermen would betray him in the hope of being raised up by Robert. The BLAST alliance simply outguns the Reach and all the Lords of the Reach know it.

The alliance is built on the marriages of Jon Arryn to Lysa and Ned to Catelyn. In such a situation it's likely that Robert would also marry Cersei. The alliance isn't fickle it's based on the feudal traditions of marriages and intertwining families and although Ned wouldn't want his nephew being killed, he also wouldn't want his best friend, his mentor and his wife's family being killed. It'd be a hard dilemma for sure but overall I really don't think that anyone could muster the forces to defeat the alliances formed around Robert even without the Northern forces. If the Tyrells or the Martells took the stupid decision to continue a war they had lost, they'd have Yronwoods and Florents and Fossoways up to their ears.

 

The problem with that being the case is that everyone should know better. In our world we don't even have prophecies and the idea of self fulfilling ones that go bad is almost as old as writing.

The Targaryens are also only around because of dreams/visions. Arbitrarily deciding to doubt them is the sort of thing that gets a family fried back in the Freehold.

 

It's a recurring theme in Martin's work so I'm always baffled by fanfiction writers who seem to want to consider prophecy sacrosanct. Personally we don't know enough about the Doom of Valyria or Daenys the Dreamer's dreams so I couldn't comment on their accuracy. However in the ASOIAF series and the Dunk and Egg series, Targaryens and Blackfyres who act upon their dreams end up regretting it.

 

It's a recurring theme, but if we view it in universe prophecies have to work sometimes. Rhaegar was thought to be smart as was Aemon and they followed prophecies, you'd think they'd take a step back and go "this has never worked for anyone ever." Marwyn makes the same argument you do, that prophecies can never be trusted, but if that's the case there's no good reason for anyone to believe in them unless we just assume they're all idiots.

In my view prophecies have to usually be right if self-fulfilling ironic ones are supposed to be a real surprise.

 

Plenty of people - even intelligent people - buy into horoscopes and astrology bullshit in real life, in the modern day, without any confirmation of their validity.

 

Horoscopes are real bro. I read it on the internet.

 

It is odd to me that people bring emotional bias into a discussion of fiction. Odran is a clear example of this. Are there any objective readers (IE you have no strong feelings regarding the Targareyens/Starks/Rhaegar) who believe Lyanna was abducted and raped? I agree that there is not enough evidence to be certain one way or the other, however, what we have been given certainly favors her leaving of her own volition.

I respect and agree with GiantMonkeyMan's thesis that most of the realm would not support "Jon Snow" as king. I could imagine the Kingsguard being forced to acknlowedge an inability to rally "Royalist" forces post announcement and being forced to flee after realizing that their sycophantic devotion would not be mirrored in the populace at large. I would still be interested in seeing a Westoros shaped by the ripple affects of R+L=J being known to the public at large. What would Westoros look like 16 years later?

On a completely unrelated note the most popular relationships on AOO are-

Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth (1671)
Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark (1623)
Arya Stark/Gendry Waters (1502)
Jon Snow/Sansa Stark (923)
Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark (900)
Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister (691)
Petyr Baelish/Sansa Stark (564)
Renly Baratheon/Loras Tyrell (463)
Theon Greyjoy/Robb Stark (458)
Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell (421)

Goes to show how most stories are based on shitty plot devices that allow an author to write about their preferred pairing. The majority of stories out there are utter shit that focus on romance, modern adaptations, and completely unbelievable "Ships"..

 

I can't really say. Maybe? Each scenario is equally possible. Either he stole her, raped her, and left her to welp at the TOJ... Or he sweet talked her, banged her, and left her to welp at the TOJ. I've never really cared which was true.

 

The issue then is Lyanna apparently being a sociopath who has no qualms about the death of her father and brother and the danger her other brothers are in. It's why I favored the "Rhaegar sweet-talked the stupid teenager predisposed to listening to his crap, she tried to leave later when she realized shit was going down, he went lolno raep time" thesis - wraps that up neatly.

Well...why would it look significantly different? It's not like it would change the end of the war itself - Dorne sure isn't gonna be bleeding for him, and House Tyrell has no reason to dig themselves an even deeper hole. The writing was on the wall by then. Then he's whisked away as before either to Winterfell or Essos, because there is no other plausible political outcome. So why would he have any more impact on the former Targaryen loyalists than Viserys and Dany did? It's not like he can really act as any more of a rallying point than they did unless we really start playing around...so where are the political changes stemming from?


Besides, what story is there to explore here that couldn't be done with Viserys (besides some misplaced angsty bullshit about family in the North he has no real connection to and which wouldn't matter)? If it's about having a more active Targaryen-in-Exile that in turn causes knock-on effects in Westeros' political structure, just have Barristan join Viserys after the war and starting going crazy from there - though you're still gonna need some serious fuckery for this to start getting reflected back in Westeros.

 

Lyanna is not being a sociopath who has no qualms about the death of her brother and father..she was an irresponsible young woman who could never imagine the consequences of running off with the man she loved. The scenario that VanRopen suggests is definitely plausible.(Rhaegar sweet-talked the stupid teenager predisposed to listening to his crap, she tried to leave later when she realized shit was going down, he went lolno raep time)

It is also possible that they did not learn about the consequences of their actions until the war had already begun. If Rhaegar told no one loyal to him where he planned on going (he was planning a coup before absconding with Lyanna) then it would have taken months for him to be found and for the news to be brought to them. Of course, isolating yourself from the realm at large when you had been planning a coup because of your father's insanity is extremely stupid but then again all of the actions he took post Harrenhal were idiotic.

Anyways, if this scenario turns out to be true...then by the time they learned about the war Lyanna was pregnant and returning her would do nothing to stop the war as the rebels had already pledged their support for Robert as King. Of course she would have been horrified to learn that her brother and father had been killed and war had broken out because of her actions and may have wanted to leave after learning this.. and she may have been forced to stay at that point.

However, both sides of the war would have wanted her to abort her babe..meaning she would have been torn between wanting to return to her family and worrying about the safety of her unborn child.

Eddard says this to Robert- "You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert. You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath." A strong willed woman who had been abducted and raped so that a mad man could fufill his prophecy would have commited suicide to spite her rapist, and escape her situation..atleast that is the way I envision it.

With regards to the plausability that they were ignorant of the consequences of their actions-Lyanna left with Rhaegar at some point after the tournament at Harrenhal... her brother learns of her disappearance on the way to Riverrun but we don't know what kind of time lag there was between his arrest and the beginning of her journey to the ToJ. If group that journeyed to Dorne (Arthur Dayne, Whent, Rhaegar,Lyanna) were avoiding public places and doing their best to not be seen, it is easy to imagine that they did not learn of Brandon's arrest/Lord Stark's journey south/their deaths until war had already broken out. They did not have messenger ravens with them..nor did they have a rookery. They were isolated from the realm and this was a time when news took months to spread unless you had access to ravens. The only thing we know concretely is that Rhaegar was missing for the early months of the war, and no one that knew him (Barristan/Jaime) think poorly of his character.



Regarding the consequences of R+L=J being well known and the Kingsguard proclaiming Jon as their King.. If the realm at large came to accept that Roberts Rebellion and the events which sparked it were caused by a lie than the war would be seen as a tragic waste of life fought over a misunderstanding. The view the majority have is that it was a just war fought in order to remove the mad Targareyen dynasty.

If the Kingsguard or one of their advisors were wise enough to offer (or create) proof that Lyanna left willingly and that Rhaegar had been hard at work "behind the scenes" in an attempt to force his mad father to abdicate via a Great Council prior to the breakout of the war, they could greatly harm Roberts image amongst the public . (The loyalist propaganda would be that Rhaegar was working on removing the Mad King before the rebellion broke out, it was Brandon's idiocy that caused his death and his Fathers, if they had been patient or reached out to a Rhaegar loyalist the whole thing could have been solved peacefully)

I imagine that any son of Rhaegar's would be considered a greater threat then any children of the Mad King and thus it is more than likely that assasins would be sent after the babe immediately. Lord Stark would not never support any rival claim to Robert, but the great rift that opened between the two after he learned the fate of Elia and her children would be impossible to heal once he learned that Robert had sent assasins to murder his nephew. He would probably swear to never support his nephew's claim to the throne but the Stark/Baratheon alliance would be dead. Ser Barristan says that he would have killed Robert if he had seen him smile at the corpse of Rhaenys and Aegon...he would have likely gone east in search of the boy after Robert and the Lannisters agree to send assasins after the babe...


If the Kingsguard decide to flee east and raise the Royal family in obscurity while waiting for an opportune time to fight for the throne..well by the time Jon is ready to fight a war Stannis would be getting ready to stake his claim to the throne as the King's children would still be Lannister bastards.

The War of the 5 Kings would play out much differently as Eddard would never be offered the position of Hand and the Lannisters would have not gone to war against the Tullys. After the Baratheon/Lannister alliance breaks down, there would be a variety of ways the loyalist forces could retake the throne. All they have to do is offer to make Margeary queen, and offer Danaerys to Edmure.

 

I think you're overestimating Lyanna's role. Until Rickard and Brandon were burned alive without a fig leaf of a trial the realm could have kept stumbling along. Similarly, once that happens there's no real chance that Rhaegar gets to hold the throne, he's demonstrated extremely poor judgement by running off with Lyanna and he insulted everyone simultaneously.

 

Yes. The Mad King who lit one of his Lords Paramount as well as the man's heir on fire then ordered the arrests of two more without trial, massively violating the rights of the nobility and thus setting off the rebellion (and giving pretense for those who wanted a shift in the balance of power). Nobody but Robert and Ned really gave a single fuck about Lyanna.

No they couldn't. All proof is he said she said, which is why these things come down to who you're inclined to support anyways. Nobody tied to the current power structure has any reason to listen to something so vague, and those who aren't and were looking for an alternative don't need to be swayed. It's also pretty easy to counter, because the obvious rebuttal is "well where the fuck was Rhaegar during the war then?"

Why the hell would he considered such? The claim is equally strong either way (in fact, Viserys' is arguably greater given Rhaegar died, then Aerys died, then Jon was born).

...all this of course ignoring his bastard status. Rhaegar was married to Elia, who was alive at Anon's conception, so no sham with Lyanna would have ever been accepted as valid even if you could produce such a witness.

Also, why would you think a literal infant was more threatening than a small child already past the threat of infant mortality?

 

I might like a NonCunt!Viserys story. Or at least a non worthless Viserys. He never even learned to use a sword.