Honestly noah fence or disrespect or anything but why do people care about Elia so much on this site?? Her main purpose in the book is to be a sad character and that’s literally it. I don’t even get why people are upset about the annulment cause we all know D&D don’t understand or care about the source material and this would never happen in asoiaf. But honestly theres a strange amount of stans for this specific character with almost no real purpose in plot.
I’m not sure that’s all she is.
admittedly, the reason I get so defensive about her has a lot to do with the fact that the way she’s treated is undeniably racialized, both within and without the narrative.
as a woman of color, it does get grating.
at king’s landing, she was disrespected and isolated from all sides, by her husband and by the court. in fandom spaces, she’s too often reduced to a stereotype, the accepting dornish scorned wife who was totes okay with her husband cheating!! of course she was!! I mean, he humiliated her, left her all alone in a court in which she wasn’t safe, she ended up defiled, raped and murdered but she was just peachy!! after all, she could have been a better wife!! if only she had been more like lyanna!!
it’s a very common sort of nonsense people sprout about her (even in the text, just look at barristan’s povs) and for those of us who care deeply for the martells, there’s bound to be a huge divide between that false perception and what we know for certain about her, which then cause people to defend her.
still, there’s so much more to her than just being a sad character who deserved better, even though that fact may warrant love on its own imo.
elia may not seem overtly relevant but she’s still a disabled woman of color, whose memory is fiercely guarded by her kins, someone who’s constantly referred to as kind, dignified and compassionate. the love oberyn and doran feel for her, their grief is what is driving their actions in the books, which is definitely moving.
there’s also the way her death is framed, which is something I’m more than willing to critize but the effect can’t be denied. her death was violent and needlessly barbaric. it caused a rift between robert and ned, it’s always talked about with disapproval and regret and it marked the moment when tywin’s gratuitous ruthlessness finally antagonized ned to all lannisters, an antagonism at the root of the events in agot. she’s at the heart of the tragedy that started it all, a tragedy that still drives our story forward years and years after the fact.
moreover, her plight, the fact that she was forgotten, brushed aside in life while her loved ones rage in her name is very much thematically coherent with asoiaf as a whole, as a series that champion the value of life, of legacies and the importance of striving for justice, even if it feels hopeless.
when oberyn is shouting at the mountain to say elia’s name, he’s challenging the lannisters and their willingness to destroy and erase all that oppose them, that will liken them to the others so strikingly. he’s standing for life, for a woman that should have lived but never did and for that waste to be acknowledged and respected.
if the point isn’t to root for that, to stand for that and defend her name too, then I don’t know what it is.
Or, How Game of Thrones Bastardized Rhaegar to Unbastardize Jon.
So, now that I can finally access the internet from my computer for an unlimited amount of time, I wanted to write down what you’re meant to make of show!Rhaegar, why he annulled his marriage to Elia (even though that shouldn’t even be possible) and how close he is to being book!Rhaegar. And while we’re at it, let me tell you all the reasons why book!Rhaegar would never do such a thing (even if he could.)
I have definitely gotten a lot of inspiration and ideas from @lyannas and @oadara especially about annulment and the complications of Jon being and then not being a bastard, and gotten a lot of useful info from A Wiki of Ice and Fire. So huge thanks <3 The article contains mentions of rape and dubious consent.
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Now, if we look completely away from Rhaegar… why would the showmakers do this whole annulment nonsense, you say? Why did they waste screentime on it and energy writing it? Because Jon Snow is their favorite, and bastardy is such a bad thing (not just an invented and bigoted Westerosi social stigma) that, on his nameday, they decided to take it away and give him legal rights to a kingdom that he never wanted, fought for or thought of having. Even though bastardy wouldn’t have affected his ability to be a hero, and even though we already have a legal claimant with an army and three dragons, who’s struggled and fought plenty for that kingdom, there’s a small problem: She’s a woman, and she’s not everyone’s favorite like Jon Snow is. Must keep the ratings up, guys. “
I love Jon Snow. But the show is bending over backwards and trying to do everything in their power to disparage many other characters in order to make him into a perfect hero, with perfect legitimacy, who would sacrifice everything - because he’s a martyr. So, let’s disparage - Dany, Tyrion, Rhaegar, Sansa instead.
Hence, why suddenly Rhaegar becomes a stupid person who would have caused another war, even if Robert’s Rebellion didn’t take place (Martells are not going to take this insult sitting down). The Three Heads of Dragon theory is not mentioned so as to take away importance from Dany and Tyrion. Dany who has an army, three dragons and cannot be questioned as a Targaryen - not only the Targaryen features, but she is a dragon rider – is suddenly losing a war in a way that makes no sense. (Why is Varys the Spider not able to get the info that Lannisters marched to Highgaarden not Casterly Rock?) Tyrion becomes a dum-dum. Tyrion is not able to convince Dany to not march to KL. (Tyrion is her hand and has been advising her for quite sometime now), but Jon is able to change her mind after 3 sentences.(Jon is in open rebellion to Dany, he shouldn’t be privy to this info, let alone advising her.) Sansa is shown as possibly plotting against him.
And I’m thinking What the HELL?
Yes, this is all very true. All of a sudden Dany trusts Jon for absolutely no reason (even though, like you said, he refused to bend the knee to her, and if he didn’t have plot armor he’d be where Randyll and Dickon have been) all of a sudden Tyrion is not smarter than Jaime and Cersei (who are two certified idiots in canon) Varys knows nothing, Sansa (who should have been crowned Queen in the North in the first place) is plotting against him, Rhaegar risked angering one of the most powerful families in Westeros to make him legitimate, and he is the rightful king now.
I love Jon as much as everyone else, but can’t people see why all of this is bullshit?
In ASOS Arya tries to kill the Hound three
times and all three times it’s mentioned explicitly that his eyes open or he
looks at her, and she then falters enough for someone to disarm her.
Then take Ned’s words in AGOT:
“If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to
him to look him in the eyes and hear
his final words. And if you cannot bear do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.”
The situations are not really comparable, but
Arya is carrying out her specific form of justice against ppl who have harmed
her family, and she somehow doesn’t kill Sandor Clegane even though she spent a
lot of time in his company. And since the final time she didn’t kill him
probably led to him being saved by the Elder Brother then, in the author’s own words (sort of), Sandor Clegane doesn’t
deserve to die.
I feel like Jon and Tyrion’s respective identities are too integral to their story to just do away with it. Jon is the bastard raised with love and togetherness; born lowborn, treated highborn by his father. Tyrion is the trueborn son raised under abuse and cruelty; born high, treated lowborn by his father. To just write it all away with “oh, Jon’s trueborn and Tyrion’s a bastard” is cheap and unecessary. Their stories mirror each other– Jon, a bastard rises to great heights in the Night’s Watch, then falls. Tyrion, a trueborn Lannister, rises as an effective and powerful Hand, then falls. One loves his father; the other kills his. Both have absent mothers: Jon yearns to know his, Tyrion hardly thinks of her at all except to dwell on how he was blamed for her death.
A lot of their insecurities stems from their birth; Jon feels the stigma of being a bastard and takes it personally, whereas Tyrion tries to meet the impossible standard his father had set for a Lannister son. These circumstances of birth, of bastard and trueborn are important, they are relevant, and they shape each of the characters. To write it off isn’t a fix-it solution– it’s not a solution at all. It cheapens their fight to make peace with their identities.
my favourite thing about jon possibly having a targaryen name is that when lyanna told ned he was probs like ‘… ok sis that’s cool but…. how the fuck am i meant to hide jahaerys jacarys jalapeno the third from robert with that name?’
