Bobby B - Tumblr Posts
Yes! King Robert Baratheon lived and died by the flesh. Can you imagine having ever gotten a POV chapter from him? That would have been ancient Greek levels of tragic comedy.
On the other hand, I often think about what the 19-year-old Lord Eddard Stark got up to between the Tower of Joy, returning Dawn to Starfall, tying up the loose ends of the war, and taking Jon Snow home to Winterfell.
If R+L=J then I really think Robert waving away the horrors of the Sack of King's Landing, especially the Mountain slaying the Targ children with impunity, soured Ned's friendship with him. Because they were people, they were a family, full stop. And he had a Targ baby of his own. It sounds too sweet to be true. But it's in line with Ned's character and we did see that he neglected to give Robert counsel for 18 years. He probably told himself that Jon Arryn would keep Robert in check enough. But again, his extreme ignorance of Robert's debt to the Iron Bank proves that he wasn't even in occasional contact with Robert or Jon.
Poor man had lost so much and gained so much, his children didn't travel much throughout the North and had never left the North! It's understandable but short sighted, and so reading his haunted chapters in AGOT always leaves me devastated.
DECONSTRUCTIONS of Fantasy Archetypes in ASOIF
So, do y’all remember that one GRRM interview where he talks about Aragon’s tax policy?
The link to the interview is right here : https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2014/04/grrm-asks-what-was-aragorns-tax-policy/
I’ve always interpreted that quote as a critique of the endings that are given to most fantasy heroes, where they save the day, and continue to rule a happy kingdom.
Now, there are many characters in ASOIF that could be linked to the hero archetype,-Dany, Jon, Tyrion, Arya, Sansa, Davos, etc.,(literally almost every POV character is certain type of fantasy hero, or possesses traits of one, although most of them are reconstructions).
But the one character I’ve always linked to that quote, is Robert Baratheon.
Robert’s Rebellion, without the nuance, reads like a Disney fairytale. The young hero (Robert), saving the maiden (Lyanna),from the evil prince (Rhaegar) and his father (Aerys). In a Disney fairytale, Robert and Lyanna would have married, and rule as the King and Queen of a kingdom that adores them. Rhaegar and Aerys would have been disposed of, and most people would celebrate it.
But in ASOIF, that’s not what quite happens.
Romance
Robert and Lyanna were betrothed, yes, but based off of perception of Lyanna from Ned, her brother (and the only POV character who actually knew her), and what we’ve seen of Robert, their marriage would’ve been miserable for her and him ( eventually).
“You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert,” Ned told him. “You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath. She would have told you that you have no business in the melee.”
“ Robert will never keep to one bed,” Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm’s End. “I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale.” Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. “Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.”
In these two quotes from Ned Stark’s chapters in A Game of Thrones, Lyanna seemingly has no interest in marrying Robert Baratheon, despite the ‘interest’ he has in her.
Who Are Robert’s ‘Villains’ ?
Putting the ‘romance’ in Robert’s story aside, we’ll now focus on his villains : Rhaegar and Aerys Targaryen. Most book readers agree that Aerys, the mad King was not a suitable ruler during the time of Robert’s Rebellion and needed to be gone. But Rhaegar Targaryen has always been a polarizing character within the fandom, and the text.
“I vowed to kill Rhaegar for what he did to her.”
“In my dreams, I kill him every night,” Robert admitted. “A thousand deaths will still be less than he deserves.”
“Her brother Rhaegar had died for the woman he loved.”
“He had failed Prince Rhaegar once. He would not fail his son, not whilst life remained in his body.”
“Rhaegar, who would have been a finer king than any of them.”
“Your brother Rhaegar is still remembered, with great love.”
Now, it is important to note that all of these are opinions from different characters, most of whom didn’t know Rhaegar personally, so there is a lot of bias in some of these quotes. But the quote that stook out to me the most comes from Barristan Selmy :
“It was said that no man ever knew Prince Rhaegar, truly.”
Because as readers, we don’t really know him at all. We know of his actions, ( some of which I find truly selfish) and there are a thousand theories as to why he does what he does, but we truly don’t know.
But anyways, let’s get back to Robert because I don’t intend to dissect Rhaegar as yet.
Robert’s Rebellion
I’m going to just do a quick summary. Rhaegar ‘steals’ the woman that Robert is betrothed to, and in result, her brother and father are murdered by his father. His father, Aerys then calls for the heads of her betrothed, Robert Baratheon and her brother, Eddard Stark. After witnessing the deaths of Rickard and Brandon Stark, Jaime Lannister executes the mad King. Robert and Rhaegar face each other on the Trident, Rhaegar dies,- y’all should know this story by now.
Ultimately, Robert killing Rhaegar and saving the realm from the mad King and his son should’ve been a good thing. It should’ve secured peace and safety for everyone in the realm. The main reason most characters (Jaime Lannister) in the books wanted the Mad King gone is because his reign threatens the safety of the innocent people of Kingslanding, and the rest of Westeros. All of these things would have happened if Robert’s Rebellion was a simple fairytale, and Robert himself were a true hero (I sound a little like Sansa here, lol), but he isn’t and now we’re going to explore why.
Those Who Weren’t Protected By Our Hero
Let’s reign in Elia Martell, one of my favorite minor characters in the series.
The majority of the time we hear of Elia, we hear of the tragic ending she and her babies got. There are theories of her being on board with Rhaegar’s ‘plans’, (theories I absolutely do not buy into), or even her being so unsatisfactory of a wife that Rhaegar may have secretly hated her(quite extreme for a character we hardly know). But one thing is for certain : she did her duty as a wife in Westeros. She provided Rhaegar with two healthy children, a boy, Aegon, and a girl, Rhaenys.
“Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar’s heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. ”
“Some said it had been Gregor who’d dashed the skull of the infant prince Aegon Targaryen against a wall, and whispered that afterward he had raped the mother, the Dornish princess Elia, before putting her to the sword. These things were not said in Gregor’s hearing.”
“It was said that Rhaegar’s little girl had cried as they dragged her from beneath her bed to face the swords. The boy had been no more than a babe in arms, yet Lord Tywin’s soldiers had torn him from his mother’s breast and dashed his head against a wall.”
What are Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon if not innocents?
Let’s see what Robert Baratheon has to say on that matter.
“Robert’s hatred of the Targaryens was a madness in him. He remembered the angry words they had exchanged when Tywin Lannister had presented Robert with the corpses of Rhaegar’s wife and children as a token of fealty. Ned had named that murder; Robert called it war. When he had protested that the young prince and princess were no more than babes, his new-made king had replied, “I see no babes. Only dragonspawn.”
Mind you, this man is talking about a toddler, a newborn and their mother. “I see no babes. Only dragonspawn.”
Robert’s take on Elia Martell and her children is not only cold and heartless, but goes against the ‘hero protecting innocents’ trope.
Robert Baratheon Almost Two Decades After His Rebellion
Now let’s look at the Robert that we meet in A Game Of Thrones.
He’s not the ‘Demon of the Trident’ who saved the realm from chaos, but rather a terrible has-been. I mean, just look at Jon Snow’s reaction to seeing him :
“The king was a great disappointment to Jon. His father had talked of him often: the peerless Robert Baratheon, demon of the Trident, the fiercest warrior of the realm, a giant among princes. Jon saw only a fat man, red-faced under his beard, sweating through his silks. He walked like a man half in his cups.”
He will probably be remembered as a good king for most people in Westeros, but only because of the small council that does the work for him.
“Perhaps we had best wait for Ser Barristan and the king to join us,” Ned suggested.
Renly Baratheon laughed aloud. “If we wait for my brother to grace us with his royal presence, it could be a long sit.”
“Our good King Robert has many cares,” Varys said. “He entrusts some small matters to us, to lighten his load.”
He’s a drunkard who abuses his wife and children and reminisces on a dead girl who had zero interest in him.
“The night of our wedding feast, the first time we shared a bed, he called me by your sister’s name. He was on top of me, in me, stinking of wine, and he whispered Lyanna.”
“The talk is you and the queen had angry words last night.”
The mirth curdled on Robert’s face. “The woman tried to forbid me to fight in the melee. She’s sulking in the castle now, damn her.”
“My son. How could I have made a son like that, Ned?”
“Ned touched her cheek gently. “Has he done this before?”
“Once or twice.” She shied away from his hand. ”
He’s kind of….pathetic.
George R. R. Martin plays with the idea that good people and good intentions do not always equate to good kings, vice versa. He uses a lot of common fantasy tropes and archetypes, but reconstructs them in a realistic way. Robert Baratheon, like most characters in ASOIF plays into the hero archetype, but him being a hero in the story is subjective and highly depends on who is perceiving him.
That’s it for now. I might do more analytical posts for some of my favorite characters but don’t take my word for it.
Sometimes when I feel ugly I remember that Robert Baratheon would probably still have wanted to fuck me <3