redline248 said:
nikator said:
The whole annulment thing in the show is so dumb. In the middle of a civil war where Dorne is already pissed at the slight to Elia and is only grudgingly sending troops he makes it worse by annulling the marriage?
Targs in the past have had multiple wives (including Aegon the conqueror) though none had done so since Maegor the Cruel. Elia basically was not able to have children any more without risk to her life, so he could have got himself some sort of dispensation to get wife number 2 rather than throw the legitimacy of his children into question.
The thing that comes from the books is the other than Robert (for obvious reasons) EVERYBODY living loves Rahegar. Even Ned has no negative feelings in his POV, Cersei thinks of him as the one that got away, Barristan and Jamie both looked up to him. An annulment for a faithful wife would be something Henry VIII would do, not Rhaegar...just a deviation from where the character actually should be.
But then they did the same thing for Robb Stark (in having him get married because he is horny rather than a Ned Starkian sense of honor) in season 2, so why not Rhaegar.
The books also had Robb get married bc he was horny (or in "love", however you want to define it), that isn't a show creation. There isn't enough show detail to know what Rhaegar was up to, but we can make some guesses based on the books. According to Selmy (I think) Rhaegar became obsessed with the prophesy. It's possible that he didn't annull the first marriage and remarry because he actually loved Lyanna. He might have just done what he thought was his best chance at fulfilling the prophesy out of duty.
Actually they did not treat Robb the same way.
In the books, Robb had just captured the Crag when he got a raven telling him that Theon had killed Bran and Rickon. He was distraught and the daughter of the Lord of the Castle "consoled" him. In the morning he felt that he had violated a virtuous maid and the right thing to do was to step up Ned Stark style and make things right by marrying her and then making it up to the Freys somehow.
In the show he basically has the hots for this random healer from Essos and wants to bone her. Cat warns him that if he follows his ***** he is throwing away the Frey alliance, but he does not care and marries her any way.
Now both marriages were strategically stupid, but the first was the type of thing a dimwitted honor bound son of Ned Stark would do....he has competing claims of honor - a promise to the Freys vs. the noble woman whose virtue he tarnished he slept with her in a moment of grief, and he picks one.
The second is just a horny rash teenager throwing it all away for passion and having no thoughts about his oath to the Freys. A son of Ned Stark would not be as cavalier about promises unless there was a competing claim of honor. The two scenarios in the book and the show are different.
As far as Rhaegar, he was obsessed with the dragon having three heads. With Elia not able to give him another child, he went with Lyanna. Now he may have fallen in love with her after the Tourney at Harrenhall, but the annulment itself was not the same.
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"A man without a belly is like a house without a balcony"
- Old Turkish saying
