vivacissimx meta masterpost ✧˖°

We're about at the time where a post like this makes sense. If you see any missing metas it's likely because I no longer (entirely) agree with either a premise or phrasing and I'd like to rework it at some point—or I forgot. Feel free to ask!

I've bolded metas which I believe to be the most sound or that highlight a critical point which is overlooked by most ASOIAF analysis I have read. I also use the tags #text and #gender-in-asoiaf.

The Starks and the North

Daenerys Targaryen

House Targaryen

Theon Greyjoy

House Lannister

ASOIAF Misc

Dance of the Dragons Era

Interesting line of thought! I do have some ideas about this. However let me preface by saying I actually have gripes with Lyanna being treated as particularly 'childish' for not being willing to marry Robert. In general this is an issue— any overemphasis on childhood (specifically girlhood) runs the risk of glorifying childlike traits to the detriment of the maturing person. There exists under patriarchal conditions a fetishization of a pure & permanent adolescent state which an 'ideal' woman should forever remain in, untainted by desire/autonomy/desires for autonomy.

The idea that Lyanna didn't want to get married generally, as in, despite Winterfell's constrictions upon her she did not want to be sent away from home at 15, to a stranger, and indeed desired/was curious about different pursuits as a girl growing into womanhood? Totally possible reading. There's a Jon quote from AGOT which probably reflects Lyanna:

So in that sense I do not think any betrothal would have thrilled Lyanna, a burgeoning person who wanted to live in the world. There were likely betrothals that would have upset her less, with a man she liked/respected more, and one who wasn't her brother's best friend. I say this because in bringing Robert's suit to Rickard, Ned did something close to commit a betrayal, in Lyanna's eyes. Part of the impetus behind Lyanna disappearing was yes escaping Robert, but it was also Lyanna's brothers who were not defending her and indeed were complicit in condemning her to the marriage, by so strongly defending Robert & his 'love' for her. "Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature." Supposedly loving her would not keep Robert faithful— and actually that love would dry up fast as soon as his fantasy-made-flesh displeased him. Jacqueline Rose: All idealization is punishing and sadistic. Lyanna knew this because her own father loving her did not give her freedom beneath his authority, and Ned/Brandon loving her did not make them receptive to even hearing her concerns out.

(This excludes Benjen of course, who was Lyanna's partner in crime. He was simply too young at the time to make a difference sadly.)

Would she hate Rhaegar proposing, I'm assuming if he was unmarried/a widower, and he found her as the KOTLT, herself not betrothed? There's a lot of factors there but the big variables to me are 1) Aerys in the background, the impression he made on Lyanna and the urgency of his issues with Rhaegar; and 2) How he went about proposing i.e. with thoughts to her comfort/interests, the timeline, what he expressed as the reasons for his admiration/what commitments he was willing to make to show he shared the values which he admired in her.

With all that... I think she'd feel trepidation regardless. Less so from a direct proposal than if the betrothal was organized by their fathers. Ultimately their meeting in the woods put them both in a vulnerable spot very quickly (and they were both pretty private people), in a negative sense of the word, and a lot would hinge on Rhaegar & Lyanna's ability to find their way to a place of shared positive vulnerability instead. As for 'falling in love' this is kinda another, more complicated question. I think those initial feelings of admiration and chaos and excitement were present between them in Harrenhal but I would call their interactions closer to 'making a human connection in a hurricane', than to romantic intimacy (on Lyanna's part definitely; on Rhaegar's part I do think he viewed her as a romantic heroine/lady knight type quite quickly— just not his romantic heroine).

"if you like talking about this" anon please 😭

EDIT: so I'm going to answer the question about it being a rescue mission below, and the actual question about the rhaelya dynamic in a separate post.

no I don't think lyanna's 'kidnapping' was a rescue mission from aerys. if you read the relevant portion in AWOIAF that specifically doesn't seem to be on aerys's mind any longer, rather he's at what some might call the brightest height of his wildfire obsession:

actually, additionally relevant: I don't think aerys lingered on the identity of the mystery knight very long! I think he assumed it was an unspecified traitor and his focus was not on them, but rather on rhaegar (and to a lesser extent tywin lannister):

in my reading, rhaegar not unmasking lyanna to aerys was a sacrifice of goodwill between himself and his father. rhaegar knew his father suspected him of all sorts of treasons, had for years by then, and given this being the tourney at which jaime was raised to the KG/tywin was absent, aerys's main point of contention was his belief that rhaegar was colluding with tywin to hurt him. rhaegar completing this task aerys set for him would have been a gesture that could have earned him some trust. some goodwill.

however, I also think rhaegar had already lost hope in mending matters between himself and his father—that aerys's rejection of baby rhaenys was the last straw. the council at harrenhal would have been proof of that, had it occurred; instead, it was the choice he made to conceal lyanna's identity at the cost of possibly adding more volatility to his relationship with an unstable aerys.

by showing up with only the shield, instead of a culprit, rhaegar knowingly put wood on the fire. it was the right choice, honestly. rhaegar could not trust aerys to be reasonable and merciful, especially not on matters connected to rhaegar considering aerys's mercurial mood, and with good reason because look what aerys had only just done with jaime! I wrote a fic recently from rhaegar's POV about rhaegar finding lyanna in the woods so excuse my indulgence, but this is basically how I conceptualize it:

so, yeah. aerys did not linger on the identity of the knight. he lingered on what he thought he knew: that rhaegar was scheming against his father, with his father's many enemies, and (deeper still) that rhaegar had not only been stolen from him by tywin but had willingly gone along with this perverted emotional kidnapping. and aerys continually trying to surround rhaegar with people who were not allies to tywin (only to turn around and suspect THEM of collusions) speaks to this:

+

which isn't to say aerys wouldn't been cool with lyanna being the mystery knight. maybe he would've been. maybe he would've straight up executed her. impossible to say!

woo okay this is so long already. let me do this as a part one and come back to answer the rest with a separate post. I love this question though so thanks for asking!

little swallowsongs prompt fill coming 🔜

month late reply, sorry 😭 but yeah they do feel feelings like remorse, introspection, etc. and that's not an insignificant part of the fic itself. I definitely focused more on viserra's relationship with alysanne because I think she's more significant to both viserra & baelon and being able to contrast viserra & baelon's relationships with their parents was a must for understanding how they two would approach each other.

as a reader, conceptualizing Incest in westeros is interesting because all incestuous coupling formations outside of siblings or parent/child were legitimated pre-targaryens. not only were they legitimate but in many cases (as was true in certain historical contexts) the preference would have been that cousins married together and produced heirs most likely to smoothly transition into continued power. targcest uniquely referred to legitimized sibling incest within one family (the royal family, traditionally recipients of special privileges in real life as well). however, at some point 'targcest' became a blanket term for any intermarriage within the extended targaryen family (cousins, uncle/niece, etc) although said configurations were not considered to fall beneath the taboo against incest in pre-conquest society.

specifically I would cite rhaenyra targaryen's war banner, in support of this observation: a quartered affair with the sigils of houses targaryen, arryns, and velaryon. the velaryon intermarriage with house targaryen was well-known, rhaenyra had been married to her cousin laenor, her husband daemon had been married to their cousin laena, their children were betrothed such that the union of houses targaryen and velaryon would produce heirs for both houses (king jace/queen baela; lord lucerys/lady rhaena)—ergo velaryon power was publicly wed to rhaenyra's cause. the arryn sigil however pointed to rhaenyra's own mother, the half-targaryen queen aemma arryn. aemma arryn's marriage to her cousin viserys was not controversial for reasons of incest but when used as an argument in favor of rhaenyra's claim, the implication became that because both of her parents were targaryens, while her rival aegon II only had one targaryen parents, she was in that sense a more legitimate claimant— so cousin marriage was brought under the umbrella of targcest, though the doctrine of exceptionalism had not legalized cousin marriage of course, because it hadn't needed to.

and so, on to the interesting part: the idea of practicing interfamilial marriage became incestuous under the banner of the targaryen family specifically. the targaryens married one another to maintain power under their social & religious beliefs = targcest. daemon & rhaenyra, uncle & niece = targcest. mind you the noble families of westeros practiced every interfamilial configuration except sibling & parent/child incest themselves, but they could understand themselves as observing their social & religious beliefs in contrast to house targaryen because they avoided unions of sibling incest. they avoided 'targcest.' did they avoid marriages between uncles and nieces? no. but wasn't daemyra targcest for exactly this reason? well, yes. see above: they're targaryens.

specifically I would cite that for thousands of years the nobility of the north intermarried solely with fellow observers of the Old Gods, to preserve their social & religious beliefs, and that in order to consolidate the power of house stark we even see a union between uncle & niece, but this is not = starkcest (which isn't a Thing). readers do not identify a connection between tywin lannister marrying his first cousin and then producing two children who engage in sibling incest as readers might in the case of any multigenerational interfamilial marriage within targaryen branches. readers do not often identify the gothic incestuous themes out of house greyjoy as what they are, despite the repetition of it.

basically 'not committing Incest in Westeros' has become a get-out-of-jail free card for every noble house, even though they do practice what we today consider incest. and that's because Incest in Westeros has been reduced to targcest, while targcest has been expanded to incest. targcest is bad is therefore treated as a salient, anti-targaryen restoration argument when really it's got nothing to do with blood relations between couple—and all to do with which last name they happen to share.

😂 much love to my italianx comrades but no I am bengali

(thank you sweet anon!)