On The ADWD Cover For Brazil, I Put Daenerys At The Top Of The Stairs Of The Meereenese Pyramid. I Had

“On the ADWD cover for Brazil, I put Daenerys at the top of the stairs of the meereenese pyramid. I had undoubtedly been, unconsciously, influenced by the series. And George told me that Daenerys wants equality for everyone, she wants to be at the same level as her people, so I had her climb down to keep it consistent” - Marc Simonetti

Here you can see the original one and other asoiaf art he drew

Gotta love all those people crying about incest who act as if Dany and Jon having sex is more immoral than 30+ year-old Drogo raping 13 year-old Dany. Incest is wrong because it can cause genetic defects and is often non-consensual (the older person taking advantage of the younger person) but I don't get how consensual relationships between adults of the same age who don't even know they're related is worse than child sexual abuse?

I know … People are so close-minded, and very ignorant about incest in general. Incest simply means sex between people who are related by blood. It is not “non-consensual” by definition. I have read scientific articles about it. Incest causes genetic defects only because it results in homozygosity, which means possessing two identical forms of a gene. In itself homozygosity is not bad (we all are homozygotes for some genes), but it increases the chances of being affected by deleterious (harmful) traits. There are very few practical studies made on the subject (because nowadays people don’t practice incest), most of them are theoretical, but this increase is not enormous. Besides, there is also something called “outbreeding” (the opposite of inbreeding,) which can also have bad consequences on the genes.

But anyway this is a quick scientific explanation (that you didn’t ask for I know I’m sorry) of incest in our real world, and the point I am trying to make is that real incest is nowhere near as dramatic as people think it is. 

Incest in ASOIAF is completely different. Targaryens and Valyrians didn’t suffer from any physical or mental deformitites - not more than those who didn’t practice incest. The Valyrians were, and by far, the most superior, advanced and powerful civilization on Planetos. They rode dragons, tamed volcanoes, built scyscrapers, used magic, and were the driving force for development and evolution in the world. Not to mention they were stunningly beautiful. So clearly inbreeding didn’t affect them in a negative way. The famous “Targaryen madness” that some members of the House displayed was an excess of cruelty, and there are no genes for cruelty. I don’t think it has anything to do with incest but rather with the dragon blood they have in them. Arguably the cruelest person of House Targaryen was Aerion Targaryen (Master Aemon’ elder brother) and he was not inbred at all. Neither his parents nor his four grandparents were related. Yet he still had the “Targaryen madness”. He is the one who drank wildfire because he believed it would transform him into a dragon.

And about the love part, I am so tired of fighting this battle … I don’t see anything wrong with two people loving each other and wanting to be together. One of the reason I ship Jaime and Cersei is because they are the only consensual couple among the main and recurring characters in ASOIAF till now (Jon and Daenerys haven’t yet met). All the other relations are either rape (Daenerys and Khal Drogo), arranged marriages (Catelyn and Eddard), prostitution (Shae and Tyrion), coerced sex (Ygritte and Jon) and so on. People are disgusted by incest although it is based on love and desire, but are fine with rape, arranged marriages, and other forms of abuse … 

Another thing that annoys me to no end about Jon and Daenerys is that fans of House Stark believe that the House didn’t practice incest … lol. Nobody in Westeros practices sibling incest apart from House Targaryen, but cousin marriages and uncle/aunt/niece/nephew marriages occur regularly. People who think they know House Stark are claiming that Jon was raised according to “Stark morals” and is “too honorable” for incest (as if incest is dishonorable), meanwhile here I am clutching my book The World of Ice and Fire in which it is plainly written that at least two Stark men married their nieces, and cousin marriages were regular. I don’t know what they will do on the show (with D&D you can never know, maybe they will even make Daenerys concerned about incest), but book Jon certainly won’t be much disturbed by the fact that she is his aunt.

Anyway. The excuse people use against incest that “children can have genetic defects” is just that, an excuse. A lot of people believe Daenerys is barren and can’t have children - yet the same people are still against Jonerys because “it is incest!”. Why would they be, if they think she can’t have children? Incest is taboo in our world, and they’ve been conditioned to be against it. And very few people are able to look past what they’ve been taught, even in a Fantasy book series.

Love Life Parallels

What is love? Desire?

Dany ran her hand down his back, tracing the line of his spine. His skin was smooth beneath her touch, almost hairless. His skin is silk and satin. She loved the feel of him beneath her fingers. She loved to run her fingers through his hair, to knead the ache from his calves after a long day in the saddle, to cup his cock and feel it harden against her palm.

“I love the smell of you,” he said. “I love your red hair. I love your mouth, and the way you kiss me. I love your smile. I love your teats.” He kissed them, one and then the other. “I love your skinny legs, and what’s between them.”

Dany loved the way his gold tooth gleamed when he grinned. 

She grinned at that, showing Jon the crooked teeth that he had somehow come to love.

Dreaming of love and home:

In her dream they had been man and wife, simple folk who lived a simple life in a tall stone house with a red door. In her dream he had been kissing her all over—her mouth, her neck, her breasts.

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father’s face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him

Regretting love:

Did he love her, truly? Did he hate her for marrying Hizdahr? I should never have taken him into my bed. He was only a sellsword, no fit consort for a queen, and yet … I knew that all along, but I did it anyway.

Every day he spent among the wildlings made what he had to do that much harder. He was going to have to find some way to betray these men, and when he did they would die. He did not want their friendship, any more than he wanted Ygritte’s love. And yet … 

Avoiding Love:

She found herself thinking of Daario Naharis once again, Daario with his gold tooth and trident beard, his strong hands resting on the hilts of his matched arakh and stiletto, hilts wrought of gold in the shape of naked women. The day he took his leave of her, as she was bidding him farewell, he had brushed the balls of his thumbs lightly across them, back and forth. I am jealous of a sword hilt, she had realized, of women made of gold. Sending him to the Lamb Men had been wise. She was a queen, and Daario Naharis was not the stuff of kings.

He wondered about Ygritte as well, and told himself that way lay madness.

Yet he was growing fond of Tormund Giantsbane, great bag of wind and lies though he was. Longspear as well. And Ygritte … no, I will not think about Ygritte.

Flustered Fools:

“The girl wants you in her, that’s plain enough to see.“ Too bloody plain, thought Jon, and it seems that half the column has seen it. He studied the falling snow so Tormund might not see him redden. I am a man of the Night’s Watch, he reminded himself. So why did he feel like some blushing maid?

She always felt a little foolish when she was with Daario. Gawky and girlish and slow-witted. What must he think of me?

Fear of Betrayal:

He flexed the fingers of his sword hand, and wondered what Ygritte would do if she knew his heart. Would she betray him if he sat her down and told her that he was still Ned Stark’s son and a man of the Night’s Watch? He hoped not, but he dare not take that risk. 

Just three nights ago she had dreamed of Daario lying dead beside the road, staring sightlessly into the sky as crows quarreled above his corpse. Other nights she tossed in her bed, imagining that he’d betrayed her, as he had once betrayed his fellow captains in the Stormcrows. 

Differences that Matter:

I know one thing. I know that you are wildling to the bone. It was easy to forget that sometimes, when they were laughing together, or kissing. But then one of them would say something, or do something, and he would suddenly be reminded of the wall between their worlds.

Daario was war and woe. Henceforth, she must keep him out of her bed, out of her heart, and out of her. If he did not betray her, he would master her. She did not know which of those she feared the most.

Moral Differences:

The man is dead. What matter if it is my hand that slays him? One cut would do it, quick and clean

He turned his back on the man. “No.“ 

Three quick strides, and she yanked the old man’s head back by the hair and opened his throat from ear to ear. Even in death, the man did not cry out. "You know nothing, Jon Snow!”

[…]

How could he explain Ygritte to them? She’s warm and smart and funny and she can kiss a man or slit his throat. “She’s with Styr, but she’s not … she’s young, only a girl, in truth, wild, but she …” She killed an old man for building a fire. His tongue felt thick and clumsy.

“Then winkle them out of their pyramids on some pretext. A wedding might serve. Why not? Promise your hand to Hizdahr and all the Great Masters will come to see you married. When they gather in the Temple of the Graces, turn us loose upon them.”

Dany was appalled. He is a monster. A gallant monster, but a monster still. “Do you take me for the Butcher King?”

“Better the butcher than the meat. All kings are butchers. Are queens so different?”

"This queen is.”

Gave up hope for Love:

She was the blood of the dragon. She could kill the Sons of the Harpy, and the sons of the sons, and the sons of the sons of the sons. But a dragon could not feed a hungry child nor help a dying woman’s pain. And who would ever dare to love a dragon?

A ragged cheer went up. Zei grabbed Owen by the hands, spun him around in a circle, and gave him a long wet kiss right there for all to see. She tried to kissJon too, but he held her by the shoulder and pushed her gently but firmly away. “No,” he said. I am done with kissing.

Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, parallels.

Both are orphans. Both lost their fathers before their birth, during Robert’s Rebellion, and both mothers died bringing them into the world.

They were smuggled away from their place of birth - Daenerys went in exile to Essos, Jon was carried to Winterfell. They both suffered abuse: Jon by Catelyn, and Daenerys by Viserys (Daenerys case is much worse of course). Dany was in the shadow of Viserys; Jon was in the shadow of Robb.

As Daenerys is sold to Drogo and starts her life with the strange culture of the Dothraki, Jon joins the Night’s Watch and struggles to adapt to the law standards of the life at the Wall. Later Jon has to join the Wildlings, the “savages of Westeros”, just as the Dothraki are the “savages of Essos”.

misslalwen also pointed that both Jon’s and Daenerys’ journeys in ASOIAF start with a feast: Jon’s very first chapter is the feast at Winterfell, when he takes the crucial life-changing decision of joining the Night’s Watch. Daenerys’s very first chapter is the preparation for her wedding feast with Khal Drogo; her second chapter is the feast itself. It happens at the same time as Jon’s story.

Their first love relation: Daenerys was sold and raped by Khal Drogo; just as Jon was forced into his relation with Ygritte - he had to sleep with her under threat on his life. Mance made it clear that if Jon doesn’t sleep with Ygritte, he would kill him (as it would mean that Jon remains true to his Night’s Watch vows and therefore is a Crow).

Yet every night, some time before the dawn, Drogo would come to her tent and wake her in the dark, to ride her as relentlessly as he rode his stallion. He always took her from behind, Dothraki fashion, for which Dany was grateful; that way her lord husband could not see the tears that wet her face, and she could use her pillow to muffle her cries of pain. When he was done, he would close his eyes and begin to snore softly and Dany would lie beside him, her body bruised and sore, hurting too much for sleep.

“I never asked you to lie for me.”

“I never did,” she said. “I left out part, is all.”

“You said - ”

“ - that we fuck beneath your cloak many a night. I never said when we started, though.” The smile she gave him was almost shy. “Find another place for Ghost to sleep tonight, Jon Snow. It’s like Mance said. Deeds is truer than words.”

 Both Jon and Daenerys develop affection to their companions.

When Drogo and Ygritte die, it’s in the hands of Daenerys and Jon. 

Both Jon and Daenerys feel guilty about their lost first loves, and mourn them.

Both Daenerys and Jon rose to power quickly, and at a very young age. Daenerys is Queen of Meereen at 15, Jon is made Lord Commander at 16. Note that it happens at the same time: Daenerys takes up residence in Meereen and becomes Queen, while Jon becomes Lord Commander, both at the end of Storm of Swords.

They are the two best examples of young leaders in the novels. How they rule, the difficulties they are facing, the trials they undergo. Their stories illustrate the battle against their inexperiences and will to move forward “kill the boy and let the man be born” “if I look back, I’m lost”.

 Daenerys was offered the chance to return to Westeros, but she decied to stay in Meereen to rule and help her people. Jon was offered to be made a Stark of Winterfell, but he refused because he knows he has a duty to the Night’s Watch, and because he feels that as a bastard, he doesn’t have morally the right to be Lord of Winterfell.

Both want the best for all the sides, and both struggle to be accepted by those they rule. They both turn their attention to the outcasts of the society,to those other people refused: Jon cares for the Wildling, and is the first Lord Commander in history to make peace with them and allow them to cross the Wall; while Daenerys releases thousands of enslaved people and does everything she can to keep them alive.

Both faced assassination attempts, by those who disagreed with their ways of ruling. While Daenerys escaped her poisoned locusts by luck, Jon is stabbed by his Brothers. And again, these events happens at the same time, at the end of A Dance with Dragons.

Both are connected to magical legendary beasts: a direwolf for Jon, and 3 dragons for Daenerys.

Both think of their family they never knew: Jon quite a lot of his mother, and Daenerys of Rhaegar and Aerys, and her ancestors.

Daenerys feels the need to carry her Targaryen lineage and fulfill the duty to her House, Jon also want to impress his adoptive father Eddard. 

He was no true Stark, had never been one … but he could die like one. Let them say that Eddard Stark had fathered four sons, not three.

“Remember who you are, Daenerys,” the stars whispered in a woman’s voice. “The dragons know. Do you?”

Daenerys tries to think of Rhaegar as her idol, while Jon’s idol was Daeron Targaryen the Young Dragon.

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse.

When Jon had been a boy at Winterfell, his hero had been the Young Dragon, the boy king who had conquered Dorne at the age of fourteen. Despite his bastard birth, or perhaps because of it, Jon Snow had dreamed of leading men to glory just as King Daeron had, of growing up to be a conqueror

Both are gentle and kind people. And both are very melancholic

Finally, Daenerys’ prophecy from the House of the Undying:

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. … mother of dragons, bride of fire …

 The obvious reference to Jon (blue flower in a Wall of ice) is part of the prophecy concerning Daenerys’ love interests, symbolised by the word “bride”. 

 And there are subtle foreshadowings when Jon and Daenerys think of the magical beast of the other (unbeknown to them of course)

He might as well wish for another thousand men, and maybe a dragon or three. - Jon, A Storm of Swords

Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry. - Daenerys, A Dance with Dragons

And I am sure there are more parallels, perhaps less obvious. Parallel lines are meant to never meet, but in the case of Jon and Daenerys, I feel these lines are sliding straight toward each other.

Apparently HBO has a documentary about the unaired pilot and most of the cast and grrm commented about what was wrong with it and George said that he didn't like the Dany/Drogo bedding scene in episode one because in his books is not rape because Dany consented the act. I mean is he aware she's a 13 old girl with grow man???

Yeah I’d like to beat him with a stick for saying it was consensual. Just because she was flushed and her heart was pounding (aka her body responding to his touches), she didn’t want to marry him or consummate the marriage at all.

What’s confusing for me is that grrm makes it very very clear in Daenerys first two chapters that 1) she’s terrified of drogo 2) doesn’t want to marry him and 3) that this is not a simple betrothal, but she’s being sold to her new husband.

Dany could hear the singing of the red priests as they lit their night fires and the shouts of ragged children playing games beyond the walls of the estate. For a moment she wished she could be out there with them, barefoot and breathless and dressed in tatters, with no past and no future and no feast to attend at Khal Drogo’s manse.

[...]

The old woman washed her long, silver-pale hair and gently combed out the snags, all in silence. The girl scrubbed her back and her feet and told her how lucky she was. “Drogo is so rich that even his slaves wear golden collars. A hundred thousand men ride in his khalasar, and his palace in Vaes Dothrak has two hundred rooms and doors of solid silver.” There was more like that, so much more, what a handsome man the khal was, so tall and fierce, fearless in battle, the best rider ever to mount a horse, a demon archer. Daenerys said nothing. She had always assumed that she would wed Viserys when she came of age. For centuries the Targaryens had married brother to sister, since Aegon the Conqueror had taken his sisters to bride. The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. Yet now Viserys schemed to sell her to a stranger, a barbarian.

When she was clean, the slaves helped her from the water and toweled her dry. The girl brushed her hair until it shone like molten silver, while the old woman anointed her with the spiceflower perfume of the Dothraki plains, a dab on each wrist, behind her ears, on the tips of her breasts, and one last one, cool on her lips, down there between her legs. They dressed her in the wisps that Magister Illyrio had sent up, and then the gown, a deep plum silk to bring out the violet in her eyes. The girl slid the gilded sandals onto her feet, while the old woman fixed the tiara in her hair, and slid golden bracelets crusted with amethysts around her wrists. Last of all came the collar, a heavy golden torc emblazoned with ancient Valyrian glyphs.

“Now you look all a princess,” the girl said breathlessly when they were done. Dany glanced at her image in the silvered looking glass that Illyrio had so thoughtfully provided. A princess, she thought, but she remembered what the girl had said, how Khal Drogo was so rich even his slaves wore golden collars. She felt a sudden chill, and gooseflesh pimpled her bare arms.

[...]

“She’s too skinny,” Viserys said. His hair, the same silver-blond as hers, had been pulled back tightly behind his head and fastened with a dragonbone brooch. It was a severe look that emphasized the hard, gaunt lines of his face. He rested his hand on the hilt of the sword that Illyrio had lent him, and said, “Are you sure that Khal Drogo likes his women this young?”

“She has had her blood. She is old enough for the khal,” Illyrio told him, not for the first time. “Look at her. That silver-gold hair, those purple eyes … she is the blood of old Valyria, no doubt, no doubt … and highborn, daughter of the old king, sister to the new, she cannot fail to entrance our Drogo.” When he released her hand, Daenerys found herself trembling.

[...]

She was still looking at this strange man from the homeland she had never known when Magister Illyrio placed a moist hand on her bare shoulder. “Over there, sweet princess,” he whispered, “there is the khal himself.”

Dany wanted to run and hide, but her brother was looking at her, and if she displeased him she knew she would wake the dragon. Anxiously, she turned and looked at the man Viserys hoped would ask to wed her before the night was done.

[...]

Dany looked at Khal Drogo. His face was hard and cruel, his eyes as cold and dark as onyx. Her brother hurt her sometimes, when she woke the dragon, but he did not frighten her the way this man frightened her. “I don’t want to be his queen,” she heard herself say in a small, thin voice. “Please, please, Viserys, I don’t want to, I want to go home.”

“Home!” He kept his voice low, but she could hear the fury in his tone. “How are we to go home, sweet sister? They took our home from us!” He drew her into the shadows, out of sight, his fingers digging into her skin. “How are we to go home?” he repeated, meaning King’s Landing, and Dragonstone, and all the realm they had lost.

Dany had only meant their rooms in Illyrio’s estate, no true home surely, though all they had, but her brother did not want to hear that. There was no home there for him. Even the big house with the red door had not been home for him. His fingers dug hard into her arm, demanding an answer. “I don’t know …” she said at last, her voice breaking. Tears welled in her eyes.

“I do,” he said sharply. “We go home with an army, sweet sister. With Khal Drogo’s army, that is how we go home. And if you must wed him and bed him for that, you will.” He smiled at her. “I’d let his whole khalasar fuck you if need be, sweet sister, all forty thousand men, and their horses too if that was what it took to get my army. Be grateful it is only Drogo. In time you may even learn to like him. Now dry your eyes. Illyrio is bringing him over, and he will not see you crying.”

Dany turned and saw that it was true. Magister Illyrio, all smiles and bows, was escorting Khal Drogo over to where they stood. She brushed away unfallen tears with the back of her hand.

“Smile,” Viserys whispered nervously, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword. “And stand up straight. Let him see that you have breasts. Gods know, you have little enough as is.”

Daenerys smiled, and stood up straight.

[...]

Daenerys Targaryen wed Khal Drogo with fear and barbaric splendor in a field beyond the walls of Pentos, for the Dothraki believed that all things of importance in a man’s life must be done beneath the open sky.

[...]

Yet that night she dreamt of one. Viserys was hitting her, hurting her. She was naked, clumsy with fear. She ran from him, but her body seemed thick and ungainly. He struck her again. She stumbled and fell. “You woke the dragon,” he screamed as he kicked her. “You woke the dragon, you woke the dragon.” Her thighs were slick with blood. She closed her eyes and whimpered. As if in answer, there was a hideous ripping sound and the crackling of some great fire. When she looked again, Viserys was gone, great columns of flame rose all around, and in the midst of them was the dragon. It turned its great head slowly. When its molten eyes found hers, she woke, shaking and covered with a fine sheen of sweat. She had never been so afraid……until the day of her wedding came at last.

[...]

Dany had never felt so alone as she did seated in the midst of that vast horde. Her brother had told her to smile, and so she smiled until her face ached and the tears came unbidden to her eyes. She did her best to hide them, knowing how angry Viserys would be if he saw her crying, terrified of how Khal Drogo might react. Food was brought to her, steaming joints of meat and thick black sausages and Dothraki blood pies, and later fruits and sweetgrass stews and delicate pastries from the kitchens of Pentos, but she waved it all away. Her stomach was a roil, and she knew she could keep none of it down.

There was no one to talk to. Khal Drogo shouted commands and jests down to his bloodriders, and laughed at their replies, but he scarcely glanced at Dany beside him. They had no common language. Dothraki was incomprehensible to her, and the khal knew only a few words of the bastard Valyrian of the Free Cities, and none at all of the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms. She would even have welcomed the conversation of Illyrio and her brother, but they were too far below to hear her.

So she sat in her wedding silks, nursing a cup of honeyed wine, afraid to eat, talking silently to herself. I am blood of the dragon, she told herself. I am Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone, of the blood and seed of Aegon the Conqueror.

[...]

As the hours passed, the terror grew in Dany, until it was all she could do not to scream. She was afraid of the Dothraki, whose ways seemed alien and monstrous, as if they were beasts in human skins and not true men at all. She was afraid of her brother, of what he might do if she failed him. Most of all, she was afraid of what would happen tonight under the stars, when her brother gave her up to the hulking giant who sat drinking beside her with a face as still and cruel as a bronze mask. I am the blood of the dragon, she told herself again.

[...]

And after the gifts, she knew, after the sun had gone down, it would be time for the first ride and the consummation of her marriage. Dany tried to put the thought aside, but it would not leave her. She hugged herself to try to keep from shaking.

[...]

The last sliver of sun vanished behind the high walls of Pentos to the west just then. Dany had lost all track of time. Khal Drogo commanded his bloodriders to bring forth his own horse, a lean red stallion. As the khal was saddling the horse, Viserys slid close to Dany on her silver, dug his fingers into her leg, and said, “Please him, sweet sister, or I swear, you will see the dragon wake as it has never woken before.”

The fear came back to her then, with her brother’s words. She felt like a child once more, only thirteen and all alone, not ready for what was about to happen to her.

They rode out together as the stars came out, leaving the khalasar and the grass palaces behind. Khal Drogo spoke no word to her, but drove his stallion at a hard trot through the gathering dusk. The tiny silver bells in his long braid rang softly as he rode. “I am the blood of the dragon,” she whispered aloud as she followed, trying to keep her courage up. “I am the blood of the dragon. I am the blood of the dragon.” The dragon was never afraid.

Afterward she could not say how far or how long they had ridden, but it was full dark when they stopped at a grassy place beside a small stream. Drogo swung off his horse and lifted her down from hers. She felt as fragile as glass in his hands, her limbs as weak as water. She stood there helpless and trembling in her wedding silks while he secured the horses, and when he turned to look at her, she began to cry.

[...]

He removed her silks one by one, carefully, while Dany sat unmoving, silent, looking at his eyes. When he bared her small breasts, she could not help herself. She averted her eyes and covered herself with her hands. “No,” Drogo said. He pulled her hands away from her breasts, gently but firmly, then lifted her face again to make her look at him. “No,” he repeated.

It’s just gross and confusing to me. I don’t understand why if he wanted to make it come off as consensual, why did he write her to be absolutely terrified of drogo, have her tremble and cry, make it clear she’s a glorified slave for him, make it clear she doesn’t want to consummate the marriage, to just then turn around and say “Well it was consensual.”

Does he know that just because a persons body responds physically doesn’t mean they’re consenting to a sexual act? Does he know that a child cannot consent to a sexual act? It’s concerning and confusing for me.

George did NAWT write “it was her 14th name day” for y’all to say he sees Drogo and Dany as romantic while defending the age gap between Rhaegar and Lyanna. It is so so obvious that Dany was deeply traumatized by her marriage to Drogo and reacted to the trauma by romanticizing and reframing it both during and after the experience. Like I don’t think Rhaegar kidnapped an unwilling Lyanna but I also don’t think George intended for us to look at their situation uncritically he didn’t write about a ton of teenage girls dying in childbirth, with husbands much older than they are, for the sake of historical accuracy alone. I think George intentionally gives us two contradictory images of Rhaegar: the evil kidnapper who locked Lyanna away and the tortured-soul hero who truly loved Lyanna and did everything he could for her and I came to the understanding that the truth is somewhere in the middle.