Asoiaf Is Everything But A Cheap Romance - Tumblr Posts

assuming kind and gentle woman are punchbugs is just so..... Ugh!

assuming a selfish and hypocritical woman to accept have other woman's son becoming king and not hers is also... Ugh!

i mean why rhaelya shippers and targ purists in general are so fucking dumb. Like do something else if a complex story with multidimensional grey characters are seriously not for you.

Annulment vs Divorce in History

Okay, I’m tired of people making judgements based on minimal facts. Everyone is talking about this news on Game of Thrones, but let me get a few things straight:

Historically, an annulment does NOT mean the children born from the marriage are bastards. Also, historically, most of the time BOTH parties consented to the annulment.

As a person who has studied history, especially medieval history, I just want to clarify the recent news that Rhaegar annulled his marriage to Elia Martell. First of all, yes, this is possible in the books. GRRM has said you only need to file a petition with the High Septon and he will decide whether or not to grant it.

Let’s not forget that Tyrion’s first marriage to Tysha was annulled.

Now it is true that Rhaegar clearly did consummate his marriage to Elia, but in the history the series is based on, annulments have happened even with children being born. Henry VIII is the most widely known example of a royal marriage ending in an annulment despite having a child.

But wait, Henry VIII had his daughter from that marriage declared a bastard. Does that mean Rhaegar had his children with Elia declared bastards? Actually no, it doesn’t. There is another annulment in history that can guide us here. Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine had their marriage annulled despite the fact they had two daughters together. Yet their children were still considered legitimate in the eyes of the law, as decreed by the Pope. The same could easily have happened here with Rhaegar and Elia.

I also want to explain the difference with divorce and an annulment. We think today as a divorce being a “dissolution of marriage” while an annulment is a “declaring a marriage unlawful, therefore non existent.” However, these are modern definitions and not exactly true to history

Divorce did not exist in medieval times because marriage was not a civil matter but an ecclesiastical one. God sanctioned marriage, not law. So in order to end a marriage without bloodshed, a couple had to get the Church to agree that the marriage was no longer sanctioned by God. It wasn’t until after the Protestant Reformation that marriage began to be seen as a civil matter and divorce, rather an annulments, came to be

Since marriage was a political arrangement, usually annulments were not sought because it would result in the woman’s dowry being repaid and other problems, better to just live apart in most cases. But it also wasn’t unheard of, and not so difficult to achieve if you were royalty. Did you know the Pope likely would have granted Henry VIII’s first petition to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon? The Pope liked making kings happy because it meant more money in his pockets. Unfortunately for Henry, The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, sacked Rome and held the Pope hostage for a time. He also happened to be Catherine’s nephew. The Pope decided to was better not to piss off Charles than Henry.

With that in mind, I think it’s possible the High Septon agreed to the annulment because Rhaegar was likely going to be king sooner rather than later (before Robert charged in with his hammer). He would have wanted to gain influence with Rhaegar, especially since I doubt he had much with Aerys. Also, with the disaster at Summerhall, and child mortality rate high, Rhaegar had a good case of needing a new wife due to Elia being unable to have more children.

Now what about Elia through all of this? She is certainly the wronged woman here, no doubt about that. And as GRRM has said, only Rhaegar would need to petition the annulment, so it’s possible she had no say in this. However, I don’t think this is the case. Since this annulment was done quietly and secretly, that could mean Elia actually agreed to it. As we know with Henry VIII, when the wife protests an annulment, it’s not a very quiet affair.

Now, many are probably wondering: why would Elia agree to this? For starters, what would she gain by protesting? She knew Rhaegar didn’t love her, after all, their marriage was political and not made by their own choice. What good would it do forcing him to stay married to her? While we don’t know much about Elia, she is considered very sweet and gentle. She doesn’t sound vindictive enough to force Rhaegar to stay married to her out of spite just to prevent him from being with Lyanna. Keeping him in the marriage would only ensure that they both would be miserable. Allowing the marriage to end not only freed him to marry Lyanna, but would leave her open to possibly finding a husband who actually loved her.

Also, Elia has always been described as sickly, with both births difficult and nearly killing her. With that in mind, I can’t help but wonder if Elia would have lived for much longer anyways. Perhaps she agreed to end her marriage so she could spend her final years in Dorne. It’s impossible to say, but if can’t be ruled out. I’m not saying that any of this is right or that she wouldn’t be heartbroken, but I don’t think any of this makes Rhaegar or Lyanna evil. Rather, I think it makes them human.

Currently, we can only say the show has had Rhaegar annul his marriage to Elia. We don’t know if this will happen in the books. But I hope this shows that is possible that it could happen that way. Only George R.R. Martin knows what he has in mind there