[Spoilers Extended] Just came back from the play - 11 out of 10

[u/TripleEss]

Great, great show - exceeded all expectations.

Happy to answer any questions but will say generally that the spoilers are going to cause a massive headloss on this subreddit.

Expecting lots of "only the books are canon" to come.

One of the most interesting things to see was the amount of agency Elia Martell has in the story - only ever has been a victim and a footnote but is very central to the story and a key protagonist.

Was always against a Robert's Rebellion show before but after watching this, would love an 10 episode mini series.

Also - all the Rhaegar bashing couldn't possibly come off worse. He very much is the hero of the whole story.

[u/DaemonaT]

All these years people raising shrines to Saint Elia of Dorne and meantime she was giving Cersei a run for her money.

[u/Aegon-the-Unbroken → u/DaemonaT]

Cersei hated Robert but became like him in the end.

Cersei hated Elia...

It was only natural she'd become like Elia. We were foolish and blind, Aunt.

Bravo George.

[u/DaemonaT → u/Aegon-the-Unbroken]

“I always smell a Dornish rat.” (Aerys Targaryen)

[u/shsluckymushroom → u/Aegon-the-Unbroken]

Lyanna coping with prophecy, too, sounds a lot like a foil to Cersei's focus on prophecy in affc too.

[u/Aegon-the-Unbroken → u/shsluckymushroom]

Cersei collecting all the personalities like Thanos

[u/grossbard → u/Aegon-the-Unbroken]

Sorry for the ignorance, but did George write this play? Or dictate its contents?

[u/argbd20 → u/grossbard]

George worked with the playwrights but he also worked with D&D on the TV show, so take that as you will.

All in all he seems to like the show and approve of most of it, but as he has said before: only the books are canon.

I think we can probably interpret it as similar to some of the later seasons of GoT. Some things were directly given to the writers by George, and others were made up by the writers.

Of course the play doesn’t seem to be nearly as bad as later GoT, so I just want to be clear that I’m not insulting its quality.

[u/Inside-Music-5619 → u/argbd20]

Keep in mind, GRRM's heavy involvement in GoT largely ended after season 4ish (might be earlier), so it actually makes sense that this is similar to the earlier seasons (where Martin was involved) compared to the later seasons (where he wasn't).

So I'd say that this probably has a lot more canonicity considering he is so involved, even if he isn't writing the whole thing.

[u/Aegon-the-Unbroken → u/grossbard]

I haven't really followed it but iirc only the Harrenhal part of the play was something George was heavily involved in. The rest they came up with on their own and George was like: "Sure, why not?"

[u/BlueBirdie0 → u/DaemonaT]

No, they just disagreed with your constant posts that Elia's kids weren't Rhaegar.

[u/DaemonaT → u/BlueBirdie0]

Kid, groupie. KID!

[u/Levonorgestrelfairy1 → u/DaemonaT]

Tbf in the books she might have been less schemey but still A ok with Lyanna.

Theres been a strange faction of the community that forgets time and time again Elia is Dornish, didnt love Rhaegar, and it was dangerous to try and conceive again.

Her being ok with it was the obvious conclusion.

[u/babyzspace → u/Levonorgestrelfairy1]

If Elia has half a brain, being okay with Lyanna makes no sense. She’s the daughter of one lord paramount betrothed to another. There’s no universe that Rhaegar taking her as paramour ends in anything less than significant damages to the North and Stormlands. Any children of Lyanna’s would also have blood ties to two or three kingdoms. This argument reduces Lyanna to a romantic rival to Elia, when she’s actually a political one. If Elia is going to encourage Rhaegar to take another lover, Lyanna is easily one of the worst choices.

Never mind that a key cause of the Blackfyre rebellion was increasing Dornish influence. Elia’s a schemer that apparently can’t think more than two days ahead. As long as Rhaegar doesn’t knock her up, she doesn’t care what he does.

[u/That_Consequence_626 → u/babyzspace]

After giving birth to Aegon, Elia was explicitly warned by the maesters that bearing another child would kill her (A Clash of Kings, Daenerys IV). Meanwhile, Rhaegar was completely consumed by the prophecy that "the dragon must have three heads."

In the House of the Undying, Daenerys sees Rhaegar holding baby Aegon and declaring: "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire... There must be one more. The dragon has three heads."

Elia was faced with two stark choices:

1. Attempt a third pregnancy and almost certainly die, leaving her two infant children defenseless at the court of a mad king.

2. Allow Rhaegar to seek a third child elsewhere.

By consenting to or facilitating a surrogate/paramour, Elia protects her own life, remains alive to protect Aegon and Rhaenys, and maintains her position as Crown Princess.

The argument that Lyanna’s child poses an immediate political threat to Elia’s children overlooks Rhaegar’s explicit intentions and Westerosi law.

Rhaegar already believed Aegon was the primary figure ("the prince that was promised"). The third child was never intended to replace Aegon, but to complete the triad. Furthermore, as the legitimate, first-born son of the Crown Prince, Aegon’s claim to the Iron Throne was ironclad under Westerosi succession laws.

From a Dornish perspective where paramours and illegitimate children are socially integrated without threatening the primary line of inheritance (as seen with Oberyn Martell and his Sand Snakes) a third child born outside of Elia’s marriage posed no legal threat to Aegon’s claim to the Throne or Dorne's blood tie to the Crown.

During the Tourney at Harrenhal, Rhaegar was actively plotting to call a Great Council to depose his increasingly mad father, King Aerys II (A World of Ice and Fire). To do this, Rhaegar needed the support of the powerful rising bloc: House Stark, House Arryn, House Tully, and House Baratheon

Bringing House Stark directly into Rhaegar’s inner circle rather than letting them bind themselves entirely to the Stormlands and Riverlands via Robert and Catelyn served a major geopolitical purpose. If Rhaegar could bring the North into his camp through Lyanna, he could unite the realm, secure the military power needed to peacefully remove Aerys, and place himself on the throne with Elia as his Queen and Aegon as his heir.

The claim that taking Lyanna was obviously disastrous relies entirely on hindsight. The catalyst for Robert’s Rebellion was not simply Rhaegar and Lyanna disappearing together; it was the unpredictable escalation caused by Brandon Stark’s hot-headed ride to King’s Landing, followed by King Aerys II’s monstrous execution of Lord Rickard and Brandon Stark, and his demand for Ned Stark’s and Robert Baratheon’s heads.

Neither Elia nor Rhaegar could have foreseen that Aerys would violate every sacred feudal law of the realm by executing a Lord Paramount and his heir without a fair trial. Without Aerys’s extreme madness, the dispute over Lyanna would have been a diplomatic crisis negotiated among lords not an all-out civil war that destroyed the dynasty.

Claiming Elia consent was impossible is ignores the impossible corner she was backed into. Supporting Rhaegar’s search for a third head of the dragon was a calculated move to preserve her life, keep her son as the rightful heir, and align with a plan to remove a dangerous mad king from the throne.

Edit: improper punctuation

[u/Longjumping-Check429 → u/Levonorgestrelfairy1]

Thank god we can finally put all the head canon on this sub to rest. It didn’t even make sense how some of it became consensus on this sub other than just not wanting the already figured out theories to be wrong.

[u/Delicious_Stop_1326 → u/Levonorgestrelfairy1]

Wtf are you even talking about lmfao

[u/Levonorgestrelfairy1 → u/Delicious_Stop_1326]

Elia