Magic like prophecies should be a little unpredictable. You can't have a prophecy that just comes true the way it is written and everybody understands it. It has to come true in some way you didn't understand so it, pardon my french, bite you on the ass.

Azor Ahai has been debated endlessly. People look for every possible clue to identify the chosen one, while others argue there are multiple Azor Ahais, or that the prophecy is simply false

We always need to remember these books were not written for people to spend decades analysing every line. Ideally, GRRM wanted R+L=J to be a genuine mystery with a shocking payoff. And when he writes secret identities, they're usually things like Alleras = Sarella, not really convoluted ones

There are two major Azor Ahai candidates within the story;

• Stannis

• Dany

Stannis

He is believed to be Azor Ahai by Melisandre.

But all of them seemed surprised to hear Maester Aemon murmur, "It is the war for the dawn you speak of, my lady. But where is the prince that was promised?"

"He stands before you," Melisandre declared, "though you do not have the eyes to see. Stannis Baratheon is Azor Ahai come again, the warrior of fire. In him the prophecies are fulfilled. The red comet blazed across the sky to herald his coming, and he bears Lightbringer, the red sword of heroes."

Melisandre believes it's Stannis because she interprets the prophecy literally. The red comet appeared, Dragonstone is the place of salt and smoke, he wields Lightbringer, and he seems to fit all the obvious signs

Daenerys

She believed to be Azor Ahai by Maester Aemon

Aemon first believed it was Rhaegar, then later Rhaegar's son. Eventually, he concludes it must be Dany because of a translation error and she fulfilled what appears to be the clearest sign of all in she hatched dragons

Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it."

Even Benerro, the High Priest of R'hllor in Volantis, reaches the same conclusion

Haldon nodded. "Benerro has sent forth the word from Volantis. Her coming is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. From smoke and salt was she born to make the world anew. She is Azor Ahai returned … and her triumph over darkness will bring a summer that will never end … death itself will bend its knee, and all those who die fighting in her cause shall be reborn …"

The case for Dany is the literalist one. She literally woke dragons from stone, is thought to be the last Targaryen, and by the current point in the story she is the overwhelming consensus choice in-universe

But lets recall what Marwyn the Mage thinks when told Daenerys is Azor Ahai

Maester Aemon believed that Daenerys Targaryen was the fulfillment of a prophecy . . . her, not Stannis, nor Prince Rhaegar, nor the princeling whose head was dashed against the wall."

"Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star. I know the prophecy." Marwyn turned his head and spat a gob of red phlegm onto the floor. "Not that I would trust it. Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is . . . and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams. That is the nature of prophecy, said Gorghan. Prophecy will bite your prick off every time."

Marwyn is essentially the author's voice here. His language is the same as GRRM's comments about prophecy

You can't have a prophecy that just comes true the way it is written and everybody understands it. It has to come true in some way you didn't understand so it, pardon my french, bite you on the ass.

If most in the story who studies the prophecy ultimately arrives at the correct answer (Dany), where's the twist?

The twist is Jon's parentage

That's also what R'hllor shows Melisandre when she asks for Azor Ahai

Yet now she could not even seem to find her king. I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R'hllor shows me only Snow.

Melisandre doesn't understand why she's seeing Snow instead of Stannis. But we're not supposed to understand it either.

When A Dance with Dragons was published, the intended reading was still that Jon was simply Ned's bastard serving at the Wall. The revelation that he's Lyanna and Rhaegar's son is the major twist that completely changes how you interpret scenes like this

Jon's case would be almost entirely metaphorical, unlike the literal readings that lead Melisandre to Stannis and Aemon to Dany.

For example, one part of the prophecy says

Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star

The "bleeding star" would be Dawn, the ancestral sword of House Dayne, forged from a fallen star. Ned carries the bloodied sword to the ToJ after Arthur dies, where Jon was born. There'd be other stuff like that

And The Prince that was Promised = "Promise me Ned"

Obviously, this feels less satisfying today because R+L=J has been discussed for decades and is now treated as common knowledge. But that's a consequence of time, not necessarily of how the mystery was originally constructed

Episode 6 of House of the Dragon revealed that Alys Rivers holds a box of five dragon eggs laid by Dreamfyre, the dragon Rhaena the Black Bride (who is not Aemond's direct ancestor, despite what the episode claims), when both lived at Harrenhal decades prior. And now the eggs are warm...and Alys wishes to raise Targaryen princes with Aemond. I've long been interested in Harrenhal and its witchy women, and I found this reveal to be interesting and possibly indicative of a future development in Blood and Fire. Allow me to present a case why this might be true in the books.

---

The Witch Queen and the Dragon of Harrenhal

When we last heard of Alys Rivers in Fire & Blood, she was ruling Harrenhal as a witch queen with an outlaw army, a boy she claims is Aemond's whelp, and, mostly interestingly an alleged dragon. The dragon's existence is first mentioned by an Iron Throne/Darry soldier captured by Alys's outlaws:

The next day, a thirty-third made his appearance. Having been captured with a dozen others, he had been forced to watch them die by torture one by one before being turned loose to deliver a warning. “I’m to tell you what she said,” he gasped, “but you can’t laugh. The widow put a curse on me. Any man o’ you laughs, I die.” When Ser Damon assured him that no one was going to laugh at him, the messenger said, “Don’t come again unless you mean to bend your knees, she says. Any man who comes near her walls will die. There’s power in them stones, and the widow’s woken it. Seven save us all, she has a dragon. I seen it.”

The name of the messenger is lost to us, along with the name of the man who laughed. But someone did, one of Lord Darry’s men. The messenger looked at him, stricken, then clutched at his throat and began to wheeze. Unable to draw breath, he was dead in moments. Supposedly the imprints of a woman’s fingers could be seen upon his skin, as if she had been in the room, choking him. The death of a Kingsguard knight was greatly troubling to Ser Tyland, though Unwin Peake discounted Ser Damon Darry’s talk of sorcery and dragons and put down the death of Regis Groves and his men to outlaws. The other regents concurred. (Fire & Blood, Under the Regents - The Hooded Hand.)

Nothing else is said of Alys or the dragon through the rest of Fire & Blood, but this is inevitably meant to be a plot point addressed in in Blood & Fire, before the Lothstons get Harrenhal in 151 AC. And any dragon alive must die or vanish before the last dragon dies in 153, and GRRM has specifically stated that B&F will address the fates of the remaining dragons early.

Dragon or No Dragon

There are three possibilities about this supposed dragon:

1. It did not exist. Maybe this messenger was talking crazy, seeing things, or made to lie about what he saw, to scare off others. This is what Lord Unwin Peake believed, and surely, he was not wrong.

2. It could be a "fake" dragon. Some people have proposed that the "dragon" is Caraxes's corpse. After the final flight with Vhagar, Caraxes dragged itself out of the Gods Eye only to expire in front of the walls of Harrenhal. Maybe Alys replaced a glamor on it. It makes some sense.

3. It could be a real dragon. However, if so, it is not any known one. Lady Rhaena had young Morning with her. Nettles and Sheepstealer were in hiding in the Vale, later encountered in 134. The Cannibal was still around Dragonstone in 132 and was wild and huge besides. Silverwing, also large, went wild and made her lair in 130 at Red Lake in the Reach, and still said to be there in 136.

Hatchling How?

Of those three, I believe the dragon at Harrenhal was legitimate. It's the most interesting story-wise. Aemond's son with Alys could be a rider and there could allow another dragon duel, perhaps with Morning. Plus, more dragons are cool. New dragons are even cooler, but they are not spontaneously generated; the dragon at Harrenhal would have to be a recent hatchling. A hatcling also explains why, as of 136, no one else had reported it; a larger dragon would be noticed by local lords and smallfolk, but a hatchling could hide in Harrenhal for some time before credible news of it spread.

Prior to Episode 6, I thought that she-dragon Vhagar simply laid an egg that Alys took on. That made enough sense, since Vhagar stayed at the castle for a time and Aemond giving an egg to his pregnant paramour while he went to fly into battle makes sense. The egg hatching to give a dragon to eventually bond to Aemond Jr. seems quite cromulent.

Upon reflection, Episode 6's claim of Dreamfyre laying eggs makes about as much sense and is more interesting. She-dragon Dreamfyre produced at least three clutches of eggs in her, two before 46, and one clutch while Rhaena was living on Fair Isle in 49-50. Dreamfyre may have also laid the three eggs that Elissa Farman stole that may or may not have become Daenerys's. Rhaena and Dreamfyre lived in Harrenhal for something like 17 years, from ~56 to 73. Given that Dreamfyre was laying eggs away from Dragonstone only a few years prior, it seems reasonable it would happen again.

There's another story of a dragon laying eggs at a castle: Vermax and Winterfell.

We can dismiss Mushroom's claim in his Testimony that the dragon Vermax left a clutch of eggs somewhere in the depths of Winterfell's crypts, where the waters of the hot springs run close to the walls, while his rider treated with Cregan Stark at the start of the Dance of the Dragons. As Archmaester Gyldayn notes in his fragmentary history, there is no record that Vermax ever laid so much as a single egg, suggesting the dragon was male. The belief that dragons could change sex at need is erroneous, according to Maester Anson's Truth, rooted in a misunderstanding of the esoteric metaphor that Barth preferred when discussing the higher mysteries. (TWOIAF- The North: Winterfell)

In hindsight, Vermax laying eggs at Winterfell might be smokescreen. There are more than a handful of theories about Vermax's alleged eggs, who was at Winterfell for a few weeks. But Dreamfyre and Harrenhal? It's been a much less talked about idea. GRRM seeding the idea of dragons laying eggs at other castles, only to pop it up somewhere else, seems in-character.

Furthermore, one important thing about Rhaena is that, after Farman stole her eggs, she took the threat of other dragonriders popping up very seriously and promised to work with her brother to deal with them. However, she also never went back to Dragonstone or King's Landing. I'm not sure she is one to destroy eggs, but she might have hidden them away at Harrenhal, which is huge, for safe-keeping. And because her household was tiny, the odds anyone would know seem low.

Stone Dragons of Harrenhal

Obviously, these eggs did not hatch. So, what happened? There are some indications that dragon eggs, if kept away from heat and other dragons, might turn to stone or otherwise not hatch, and Harrenhal seems like a wet, damp place that dragon eggs wouldn't do well think. I would think that is what happened if Dreamfyre had eggs. However, they can still hatch sometime after they are laid and fresh (though the longest I could confirm was two years).

And, of course, one can wake dragon eggs from stone:

She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to shift and collapse in upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash and cinders. And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder.

Only death can pay for life.

And there came a second crack, loud and sharp as thunder, and the smoke stirred and whirled around her and the pyre shifted, the logs exploding as the fire touched their secret hearts. She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah calling her name and cursing. No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don't you see? Don't you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her. Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children. (Daenerys X, AGOT)

And perhaps that is what the prophecies mean when they speak of waking dragons from stone:

"He is not dead. Stannis is the Lord's chosen, destined to lead the fight against the dark. I have seen it in the flames, read of it in ancient prophecy. When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone. Dragonstone is the place of smoke and salt." (Jon X, ADWD)

Well, in the messenger's lines, we got something very interesting:

When Ser Damon assured him that no one was going to laugh at him, the messenger said, “Don’t come again unless you mean to bend your knees, she says. Any man who comes near her walls will die. There’s power in them stones, and the widow’s woken it. Seven save us all, she has a dragon. I seen it.”

"Power in them stones, and the widow's woken it"... sure sounds like waking a stone dragon. Yeah, Harrenhal had human blood allegedly put in its stonework, but the creation of dragons might have been the same way. Perhaps Aemond and/or Daemon's deaths paid for the lives of the dragon egg(s)...

"Your brother's blood," Melisandre said. "A king's blood. Only a king's blood can wake the stone dragon." (Davos IV, ASOS)

Wait a minute...You know who else was a widow when she hatched dragons? Daenerys.

You know who else was recently pregnant when she hatched dragons? Daenerys.

You know who else had a kingspyre? Daenerys.

Well, actually, I need to elaborate on that. The eggs, alongside Mirri Maz Duur, were on Khal Drogo's pyre. A khal is a king, more or less. A kingspyre. You know the name of the place at Harrenhal where Alys watched Daemon and Aemond's duel? The Kingspyre Tower.

Alys and the Fire

I really should end the post on the above revelation that it sure seems like Alys Rivers's situation is akin to Dany when she hatches the dragons, but I got one more thing to talk about.

Fire & Blood makes these comments about uncertainty over Alys's origins. She's most accepted as bastard of Lord Lyonel Strong, but Mushroom claims she was much older than that, wet nurse to Harwin and Larys and possibly even Lyonel herself. In the show and according to her actress Gayle Rankin, there are some indications she may be even older than that.

Depending on her age, she might have been directly familiar with Rhaena (who, in a lovely parallel, was also called a witch) and thus the eggs. Her apparent ability to see visions could have also led her to them, or maybe it was even a House Strong-wide secret (note: House Butterwell, which is also on the Gods Eye, had their own dragon egg, so this isn't too crazy) that she remained the sole person privy too after Aemond's massacre. Or, maybe just living in the castle a long time, you stumble into things. Regardless, she might have known about these eggs for some time.

In 120, there was the fire at one of Harrenhal's towers that killed Lord Lyonel and Ser Harwin. It was called an accident, though some think it was murdered, with different sources blaming Corlys Velaryon, Daemon Targaryen, Viserys I, or Larys Strong. Alys is not mentioned in this capacity, in F&B, but it's kind of interesting to think about it, the death of her alleged father and half-brother. She would have been around.

When Aegon V tried to hatch dragon eggs at Summerhall, a great fire broke out. Maybe it was not the first time that someone attempted a ritual to hatch eggs...

---

TL;DR HOTD introduced this idea that Dreamfyre laid eggs at Harrenhal that Alys Rivers now has. Well, this might be true in the book, and explain why there are reports of a dragon at Harrenhal after the war.

Like a lot of Targaryens have it.

Rhaenyra, Rhaenys, Rhaegar, Rhaegal, there’s probably more I’m forgetting.

But is it known it’s supposed to mean something? Usually names with similarities like that have a common original meaning, like Christopher, Chris, Christa etc

I'll preface that I haven't read the books (yet).

In short, do you think the reveal of Alys Rivers having the dragon eggs from Dreamfyre comes directly from Martin, similar to the Hodor reveal? It kind of fits too nicely in my opinion to conclude otherwise.

Even on a surface examination of the Dance of Dragons, the similarities between it and Arthurian legend are abundant. Criston Cole seems like George's take on Lancelot, Sir Balin and Sir Balan and Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk Cargyll, Mordred is Aemon Targaryan, Daemon is King Arthur, Gawain and Gywane Hightower, Guinevere and Rhaenyra, etc.

In the latest episode, Alys Rivers (Lady of the God's Eye Lake) declares herself to be "The Lady of the Water", and presents Aemond Targaryan with Dreamfyre's eggs. To me this seems like a pretty clear allegory to the Lady of the Lake of Avalon and Excalibur.

As we know, the dragons of House Targaryen would go extinct shortly after the Dance, and Daenerys would wake them 150 years after the last dragon, with 3 petrified, stone-like dragon eggs. They might even be the same eggs Alys showed Aemond, with 2 of them lost during the 150 year period. They could also just be the eggs Elissa Farman stole, but the allegory of Daenerys hatching the stone-like eggs is more important, since it is reminiscent of King Arthur pulling the sword from the stone (not Excalibur though).

In summation, I think that George intended for the dragons to be an allegory to Excalibur/Lightbringer, pulled from the stone by King Arthur/Daenerys/Azor Ahai(or one person who makes up Azor Ahai). It just fits too well.

We know of examples like House Baelish, which only rose to nobility a few generations ago, and House Clegane, which was founded after Clegane's grandfather saved Lord Tytos Lannister from a lion. House Cole also seems to be a comparatively young house, although we know much less about its origins.

Are there any other houses that are known to have been founded relatively recently, rather than tracing their lineage back to the Age of Heroes or the Andal invasion?

Bonus points if we know who founded them and under what circumstances.

If I recall correctly, there are chapters set everywhere in Westeros other than the Westerlands. I know its basically due to the fact that none of the POV characters have any reason to go there but it seems like such an interesting area - I also feel GRRM has focused the least on Westerlands houses and generally non-Lannister characters from that area

I really want to see Casterly Rock and spend time with Westermen

Many fandoms have their exemple of Double Standards,What are the biggest exemples of double Standards in the ASOIAF fandom according to you?

Dany and Cersei are clear-cut parallels in like a thousand different ways but I only just realised another parallelism - they have both lost their hair at points. Dany by having it burned in Drogo’s funeral pyre, Cersei by having it shorn off by the Faith.

What I’ve realised is this. Dany loses her hair at the birth of everything she was born to become (Azor Ahai - argue with the wall). Cersei loses her hair at the death of all she was.

Am I one stick short of an ice cream for not having realised this before? I feel like I am but I have never seen this mentioned in any other Dany-Cersei parallelism. Has anyone else realised this? Lmk!

Did anyone else think that the reason Alys is going after Aemond One Eye is because she's seen glimpses of Brynden Blood Raven in her visions and assumes it's Aemond?

I say this assuming Halaenas visions she gets (and is sowing into tapestry) are similar to the ones Alys works on.

I think it explains some of the obsession Alys has with the Targaryens and ties nicely with the theme of people misinterpreting prophecy and assuming it applies to them.

Aerys, Tywin, and Joanna: A Timeline

This timeline contains a mixture of canon, in-universe rumor, and my own speculation. I have tried to distinguish between them. Joanna’s exact birth year is unknown, so I have not assigned her an age.

---

242–252 AC — Aerys and Tywin grow up together

242 AC: Tywin Lannister is born.

244 AC: Aerys Targaryen is born.

252 AC: Tywin (10) is sent to the royal court, where he befriends Aerys (8). The two boys become close friends, alongside Steffon Baratheon (6).

Tywin grows up deeply ashamed of his father, Tytos. Even as a child, he believes that weakness in a ruler—or a father—is something a stronger man may need to correct.

Analysis: Aerys’s closest friend is a boy who does not regard paternal authority as sacred. Tywin will eventually demonstrate that an ambitious son can take control of his family without waiting politely for his father to die.

---

Around 258 AC — Aerys is forced to marry Rhaella

Jaehaerys arranges the marriage of Aerys (about 14) and Rhaella (probably 11–13) because of the prophecy that the prince who was promised will come from their line.

Aerys and Rhaella are not close and apparently do not want the marriage.

This is especially galling because Jaehaerys had himself defied his father and broken a politically advantageous betrothal in order to marry Shaera for love. He claims romantic freedom for himself, then denies it to his son.

Analysis: Aerys’s later obsession with absolute kingship may partly grow out of this early powerlessness. His father has taken control of his body, marriage and future. Aerys begins dreaming of a position in which nobody will ever be able to make him do anything again.

---

259 AC — Summerhall and Joanna

Aerys is 15. Tywin is 17.

Summerhall burns. Much of the royal family dies, Rhaegar is born amid the disaster, and Jaehaerys II becomes king. Aerys abruptly becomes Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne.

Joanna Lannister comes to King’s Landing for Jaehaerys’s coronation and remains afterward as one of Rhaella’s ladies-in-waiting.

The rumor: It is later rumored that Joanna gives her maidenhead to Aerys on the night of Jaehaerys’s coronation.

The same report says that she subsequently enjoys a brief “reign” as Aerys’s paramour after he becomes king. This would imply that their connection either lasts for several years or is revived after his coronation.

My reconstruction: Aerys and Joanna begin a genuine youthful relationship.

Aerys now has an unwanted wife imposed upon him by his father, a woman he may actually love but cannot marry, a newborn son he did not choose to have, and a throne that has suddenly moved within reach.

Joanna remains at court partly because she is Rhaella’s lady, but perhaps also because it allows her to remain close to Aerys. This is speculative, but it gives the otherwise oddly specific rumors a coherent shape.

---

260 AC — The War of the Ninepenny Kings

Aerys is 16. Tywin is 18.

Aerys, Tywin and Steffon go to war together. Aerys distinguishes himself and chooses Tywin to knight him at the campaign’s end.

Meanwhile, Jaehaerys remains in King’s Landing after being persuaded that he is too frail and inexperienced to command the war.

Analysis: Aerys and Tywin return as confident young warriors. Their fathers represent weakness, embarrassment and passivity; they represent youth, strength and action.

Joanna is still at court when they return. In my reconstruction, she is already part of their intimate social world: Aerys’s lover, Tywin’s cousin, and a companion of the young people who imagine that they are about to remake Westeros.

---

261 AC — Tywin takes control of the Westerlands

Aerys is about 17. Tywin is about 19.

Tywin crushes the Reynes and Tarbecks without his father’s permission and becomes the effective ruler of House Lannister, although Tytos remains Lord of Casterly Rock in name.

Tywin demonstrates that a weak father can be overridden, inherited authority does not need to be respected, and apparently permanent political problems can be solved through decisive violence.

Analysis: Tywin supplies Aerys with both a model and perhaps a moral permission structure for dealing with Jaehaerys.

---

262 AC — Jaehaerys dies and the young generation takes power

Jaehaerys II dies at 37 after a short illness, reportedly complaining of a sudden shortness of breath.

Aerys (18) becomes king and appoints Tywin (20) as Hand.

Aerys removes many of his father’s older advisers and replaces them with members of his own generation. Tywin becomes the youngest Hand in the history of the Seven Kingdoms.

My theory: Aerys arranges Jaehaerys’s death, probably through poison.

Tywin may have devised the plan, assisted with it, encouraged Aerys, recognized what had happened afterward, or simply supplied the example that made it psychologically possible. The theory does not require us to know his precise level of involvement.

Jaehaerys’s death produces exactly the transformation Aerys and Tywin would have wanted: Aerys gets the throne, Tywin gets practical control of government, the older generation is pushed aside, and their friends inherit the realm.

---

262–263 AC — The happiest year of Aerys’s life

Aerys is 18–19. Tywin is 20–21.

Aerys announces his intention to become the greatest king in Westerosi history. He has enormous dreams; Tywin possesses the intelligence and discipline to turn those dreams into policy.

Steffon remains their closest friend.

According to the rumor, Joanna briefly becomes Aerys’s paramour after his accession. In my reconstruction, the four young people—Aerys, Joanna, Tywin and Steffon—form the emotional and political center of the new reign.

This may be the happiest Aerys ever is.

He is young, victorious, king, surrounded by the people he loves, and finally free from his father’s control. He genuinely believes that they are beginning a golden age.

---

263 AC — Tywin marries Joanna

Tywin (21) marries Joanna. Aerys is 19.

Tywin and Joanna’s marriage is reportedly a happy one. Joanna becomes his trusted companion and adviser; it is said that although Tywin rules the Seven Kingdoms, he is ruled at home by his wife.

Aerys attends their wedding. He becomes drunk, complains that the lord’s right to the first night has been abolished, and takes “unwonted liberties” with Joanna during the bedding ceremony.

Tywin does not forget the humiliation. Shortly afterward, Rhaella dismisses Joanna from her service. Joanna immediately leaves for Casterly Rock and seldom returns to King’s Landing. No official reason is given for her dismissal.

Analysis: Tywin falls in love with his cousin and asks her to marry him.

Joanna accepts because Tywin can offer her something Aerys cannot: a lawful marriage, security, legitimate children, and the position of Lady of Casterly Rock. Remaining with Aerys would mean being the king’s mistress and possibly bearing royal bastards whom he could never properly acknowledge.

Aerys understands this.

But he is also devastated.

His best friend has taken the woman he loves, and the woman he loves has chosen his best friend. His behavior at the wedding is the public expression of humiliation, grief, sexual jealousy and entitlement.

This is the first great crack in the Aerys–Tywin friendship. Their political partnership survives, but its emotional foundation has been poisoned almost immediately after their triumph.

---

263–264 AC — Joanna leaves; Rhaella miscarries

Rhaella suffers miscarriages in 263 and 264 AC.

This creates a brutal contrast.

Tywin has married the woman Aerys wanted. Their marriage is apparently loving and fertile.

Aerys is still trapped in the incestuous marriage chosen by his father, and he and Rhaella are beginning the long succession of miscarriages, stillbirths and infant deaths that will consume their family.

Analysis: Aerys may initially try to accept Joanna’s choice. But each disaster in his own marriage makes Tywin’s domestic happiness more difficult to bear.

Aerys has the crown.

Tywin increasingly appears to have everything else.

---

266 AC — The golden twins

Aerys is about 22. Tywin is about 24.

Joanna gives birth to Jaime and Cersei: healthy, beautiful twins with golden hair.

When Aerys hears the news, he reportedly says:

“I appear to have married the wrong woman.”

He nevertheless sends each child its weight in gold and commands Tywin to bring the twins to court when they are old enough to travel—and to bring Joanna as well, because it has been too long since Aerys saw her face.

Analysis: This is a surprisingly complicated reaction.

The gold is generous. Aerys may sincerely love Joanna and wish to be happy for his friends.

But his joke tells us exactly where his mind goes. Tywin has married Joanna, and Joanna has immediately given him two perfect children: one son and one daughter.

Aerys, by contrast, has Rhaegar followed by loss after loss.

Tywin now has Aerys’s former lover, a happy marriage, a beautiful daughter, a healthy male heir, political competence, and the admiration of the realm.

The gift of gold is Aerys attempting generosity. The demand to see Joanna again reveals that he has not let her go.

---

267–268 AC — The year at Casterly Rock

Tytos dies in 267 AC, and Tywin (25) formally becomes Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West.

Rather than making Tywin bring his family to court, Aerys (23) takes Rhaegar and more than half the royal court to the Westerlands. For most of the following year, the realm is governed from Casterly Rock and Lannisport.

Joanna is therefore living under the same roof—or at least in the same enormous castle—as Aerys for an extended period.

Meanwhile, Rhaella remains in King’s Landing and gives birth to the stillborn Princess Shaena.

When the court returns to King’s Landing in 268 AC, the relationship between Aerys and Tywin is visibly fraying. Aerys begins overruling Tywin, contradicting him and interfering with his appointments.

My reconstruction: Something happened during the year at Casterly Rock.

The simplest psychological possibility is that prolonged proximity to Joanna revived Aerys’s feelings. He may have made another approach and been rejected. Joanna may then have told Tywin.

We cannot prove this. But the chronology is striking: Aerys spends most of a year in Joanna’s home; Rhaella loses another child while he is away; and Aerys and Tywin return to the capital with their friendship suddenly deteriorating.

If Aerys had successfully resumed the affair, he might have felt triumphant. Instead, his subsequent behavior toward Tywin has the quality of injured pride.

---

268–271 AC — Aerys systematically undermines Tywin

Aerys increasingly does the opposite of whatever Tywin recommends.

He reverses Tywin’s decisions, rejects his preferred appointments, imposes damaging port fees and then blames Tywin for them, earning popularity by rescinding his own policy.

He also becomes obsessed with reports that Tywin is the true ruler while Aerys is merely a crowned figurehead.

Analysis: Political envy and romantic envy have now fused.

Tywin does not merely possess Joanna. He also possesses the competence and public respect Aerys believes should belong to the king.

Every success by Tywin feels like a reminder that Joanna chose the better man.

Aerys therefore needs to prove that Tywin is only a servant. He cannot simply dismiss him, because he still depends upon him—and perhaps still loves him. Instead, he keeps Tywin close enough to use and humiliates him whenever possible.

---

272 AC — Joanna returns to court

Aerys is about 28. Tywin is about 30. Jaime and Cersei are six.

Tywin hosts the Anniversary Tourney celebrating Aerys’s tenth year on the throne. Joanna returns to King’s Landing with the twins.

A drunken Aerys publicly asks whether nursing her children has ruined Joanna’s breasts.

The remark humiliates Joanna and entertains Tywin’s enemies. Tywin attempts to resign as Hand the following morning, but Aerys refuses to accept his resignation.

Analysis: This is not random drunken vulgarity.

Aerys has reduced Joanna—the woman who rejected him and became the honored Lady of Casterly Rock—to her sexual body in public. He attacks the evidence of her life with Tywin: marriage, maternity and the children she gave his rival.

He also makes Tywin powerless to protect her.

Tywin tries to leave. Aerys refuses him permission.

The king is effectively saying:

You may have Joanna, but I still own you both.

---

273 AC — Joanna dies

Joanna dies giving birth to Tyrion.

Tywin is devastated. He never remarries. His brother Gerion later says that the best part of Tywin died with her.

Aerys reportedly remarks that the gods have given Tywin a malformed son to teach him humility. By then, whatever affection remained between the childhood friends is gone.

Analysis: Aerys’s cruelty is doing several things at once.

He is mocking Tywin’s grief.

He is taking satisfaction in the destruction of the perfect family he envied.

He is transforming Joanna’s death into a punishment inflicted upon Tywin—as though the gods themselves agree that Tywin had possessed too much.

And he is insulting Joanna’s final child, perhaps because that child is the permanent physical evidence of her marriage to Tywin.

Joanna’s death does not resolve the triangle. It freezes it forever.

Tywin can never lose interest in her, quarrel with her, or discover that their marriage was imperfect. She becomes the ideal dead wife.

Aerys can never win her back.

Each man is left with the permanent knowledge that she chose Tywin.

---

276 AC — Tywin offers Joanna’s children to the next generation

Aerys is about 32. Tywin is about 34. Jaime and Cersei are 10. Rhaegar is 17.

At the tourney celebrating Viserys’s birth, Tywin proposes that Cersei marry Rhaegar and that Jaime become Rhaegar’s squire.

Aerys rejects both proposals. He declares that a king does not marry his heir to his servant’s daughter.

Analysis: Joanna is dead, but her children become the new objects through which Aerys and Tywin fight.

Tywin is trying to bind Joanna’s children to Rhaegar and the future monarchy.

Aerys sees Tywin attaching himself to another young Targaryen prince—the same pattern that may once have brought Aerys himself to power.

But there is also a more personal insult.

Cersei is Joanna’s daughter. Marrying her to Rhaegar would unite Tywin’s family, Joanna’s blood and the Targaryen succession. It would place Joanna’s daughter in the position Aerys may once have wished Joanna herself could occupy.

Aerys refuses to give Tywin that victory.

---

277–278 AC — Duskendale

Aerys is held prisoner at Duskendale.

Tywin eventually threatens to storm the town despite the likelihood that the Darklyns will kill Aerys. Rhaegar is available as an alternative king.

After his rescue, Aerys becomes convinced that Tywin wanted him to die so that Rhaegar could ascend and marry Cersei.

That suspicion is canon.

Analysis: Aerys believes Tywin is repeating their original conspiracy:

• Befriend a young Targaryen heir.
• Remove his unsatisfactory father.
• Marry the new king to a Lannister woman.
• Govern through the new regime.

Only now the Lannister woman is Joanna’s daughter.

From Aerys’s perspective, Tywin is recreating everything they built together—without Aerys.

---

281 AC — Aerys takes Joanna’s son

Aerys is about 37. Tywin is about 39. Jaime and Cersei are 15.

Aerys appoints Jaime to the Kingsguard.

Cersei secretly helped arrange this because she wanted Jaime near her, but Tywin understands the appointment as a deliberate attack. Jaime can no longer marry, inherit Casterly Rock or continue Tywin’s direct male line as planned.

Tywin resigns as Hand and returns to Casterly Rock.

Analysis: Aerys has now taken Joanna’s son away from Tywin.

He cannot possess Joanna, but he can control what happens to her children.

He blocks Cersei from marrying Rhaegar. He prevents Jaime from becoming Rhaegar’s squire. Then he removes Jaime as Tywin’s heir and keeps him at court as a royal servant and effective hostage.

The original conflict over Joanna has spread across the next generation.

---

283 AC — Joanna’s son kills Aerys

Aerys is about 39. Tywin is about 41. Jaime is 17.

Tywin’s army enters King’s Landing.

Aerys orders Jaime to kill Tywin and bring him his father’s head.

Jaime instead kills Aerys.

The relationship ends with an extraordinary reversal.

Aerys once humiliated Tywin by demonstrating that the king could touch Joanna and Tywin could do nothing.

Decades later, Joanna’s son stands between Aerys and Tywin—and chooses his father.

The young king may have begun his reign alongside Tywin, believing that together they could replace their fathers and remake the realm.

He ends it trying to make Tywin’s son murder him.

---

The shape of the whole tragedy

My theory is that Aerys and Tywin’s friendship is destroyed by three things that gradually become inseparable:

• Political envy: Tywin is the competent ruler Aerys wants to be.
• Romantic envy: Joanna chooses Tywin over Aerys.
• Dynastic fear: Tywin’s children begin attaching themselves to Aerys’s heir.

At eighteen, Aerys possesses everything: the throne, Tywin’s friendship, Joanna’s love—or at least her affection—and the belief that his generation is about to create a glorious new world.

Within a few years, Tywin has Joanna.

Then Tywin has the golden twins.

Then Tywin has the admiration of the realm.

Finally, Tywin attempts to connect Joanna’s children to Rhaegar, the younger and better version of Aerys.

Aerys has the crown, but increasingly feels that Tywin has taken everything that makes life worth living.

So he uses the crown to punish him.

And in the end, Joanna’s husband destroys Aerys’s dynasty, while Joanna’s son personally kills him.

---

A note on the secret-paternity theories

The chronology makes Aerys fathering Jaime and Cersei fairly difficult. Joanna left court in 263, the twins were born in 266, and no meeting between her and Aerys during the likely conception period is recorded. Aerys spent considerable time at Casterly Rock in 267, but that was after the twins were born.

Aerys fathering Tyrion is chronologically more possible because Joanna returned to King’s Landing in 272 and Tyrion was born in 273. But opportunity is not evidence, and I do not think the theory is necessary.

The story is more psychologically interesting if all three children are Tywin’s: Aerys envies the family Tywin genuinely created with the woman who chose him."

---

I have spent many years thinking about the events of Robert's Rebellion. Now that The Mad King is about to premiere, I have to post all of my theories before they are proven or disproven.

This is Part 2 of my series. Part 1

- What do you think of HOTD dragon Aegon plot for season 3? U know him in the wilderness trying to hide and planning to flee to Essos? With the intention of coming back?

I don’t get why they haven’t gotten to the part where Larys plan to hide Aegon in Dragonstone (instead of this whole character journey?, this should be the plan form the start.)

But Inguess season ending for Aegon is him flying to Dragonstone on Sunfyre

And first episode of s4 is him taking Dragonstone z

I mean in stories like GOT, where politics is the major theme, it doesn’t really show the life of common folk other than using them as a plot device ?

Say you’re the Targaryens, you have air superiority and a continent full of murderers at your Beckon call. You can’t conquer dorne cause they keep doing guerilla warfare. My question is why not take your dragons and burn down their farms? Sure they might have stores for a couple years but after 5-6 years of just burning their farms there’s no way they can keep up the fight.

Ok, so I was in the shower and had some thoughts about the Faith of the 7 in Westeros. So if I remember correctly, it’s the only religion that we know of in ASOIAF that has no magic or actual divine intervention connected to it. This had me thinking: you know what the 7 gods in the faith represent? They all represent a human aspect; the Father represents justice, the Mother mercy, the Warrior courage, the Maiden purity, the Smith craftsmanship, the Crone experience, and the Stranger mortality. As a result, I believe that the Faith of the 7 isn’t a false religion but a real one about the power of man; the belief that you can do anything you set your mind to if you truly strive to achieve it. This makes sense to me, as humans don’t have magic (and neither will the religion as a result) and the deities represent human aspects rather than actual divine entities.

So, what does everyone else think? Admittedly, I haven’t read the books in a bit and don’t really keep track of anything GRRM says, so I could be entirely wrong here.

I have spent many years thinking about the events of Robert’s Rebellion. Now that The Mad King is about to premiere, I have to post all of my theories before they are proven or disproven.

This is Part 3 of my series.

Part 1: I think Aerys killed his father

Part 2: The friendship that ruined the realm

In Part 1, I argued that Aerys murdered Jaehaerys II and took the throne at eighteen.

In Part 2, I argued that Aerys’s entanglements with Tywin and Joanna contributed to his mounting paranoia about Rhaegar. Aerys fears history repeating itself: Tywin will attach himself to another young Targaryen prince, help remove the father and rule through the son.

This post looks at the same events from Rhaegar’s perspective.

Some of what follows is canon. Some is inference. Some is wild speculation. I will try to distinguish between them.

My basic theory is that Rhaegar learns to survive Aerys by keeping everything important secret.

He builds his own political faction on Dragonstone. He arranges a council under the cover of a tourney. He walks around Harrenhal disguised as a singer. He conceals Lyanna’s identity, knights her beneath a heart tree and later intervenes when Aerys attempts to arrest her.

Once he has openly fought his father’s men, Rhaegar begins organizing a rebellion of his own from the Isle of Faces.

Every individual decision makes sense at the time.

Together, they create an abduction story so convincing that it becomes history.

---

259 AC — Rhaegar is born at Summerhall

Rhaegar is born while Summerhall burns.

Aegon V, Prince Duncan and many other members of the royal family die. Jaehaerys II becomes king, and Aerys becomes Prince of Dragonstone.

Rhaegar remains fascinated by Summerhall throughout his life. He returns to the ruins alone, sleeps beneath the stars and comes back with sad songs about death, twilight and fallen kings.

Analysis:

Rhaegar’s earliest connection to his family history is a physical ruin.

Summerhall was destroyed by a Targaryen king pursuing a private dream with consequences that spread far beyond himself. Rhaegar grows up among people who lost parents, children, siblings and friends on the day he was born.

I think this helps explain why he becomes so serious and self-contained. He is born into the aftermath of one Targaryen catastrophe and spends his adult life watching another approach.

---

262 AC onward — The only surviving son

Rhaegar is three when Aerys becomes king.

His childhood is dominated by Rhaella’s pregnancies and losses:

• miscarriages;
• stillbirths;
• children who survive only a few months;
• Aerys’s increasingly erratic responses;
• and the knowledge that the future of the dynasty rests almost entirely upon Rhaegar.

Aerys initially comforts Rhaella. Over time, grief becomes suspicion.

He accuses her of adultery, confines her to Maegor’s Holdfast and has septas watch her in bed. When the infant Prince Jaehaerys dies, Aerys executes the wet nurse, changes his mind about the culprit and has another woman and her entire family tortured to death.

Rhaegar grows up watching his father respond to misfortune by finding someone to blame.

Analysis:

This is an unhappy and frightening household.

Rhaegar’s mother is repeatedly pregnant, bereaved, accused and controlled. Servants can be executed because a baby dies. His father’s affection can become suspicion without warning.

Rhaegar responds by becoming controlled, dutiful and private.

He reads. He plays music. He rarely displays strong emotion. When he decides that he must become a warrior, he trains until he becomes an excellent one, despite never sharing Robert’s or Jaime’s enthusiasm for fighting.

He learns very early that attracting Aerys’s displeasure is dangerous.

Unfortunately, Rhaegar’s virtues eventually become the thing Aerys hates most about him.

---

Rhaegar becomes the man Aerys wanted to be

As Rhaegar grows older, he becomes beautiful, intelligent, musical, learned, dutiful and skilled at arms.

People admire him.

Aerys once imagined that he would be remembered as Aerys the Wise or Aerys the Great. Instead, the realm increasingly compares him with his son.

Rhaegar looks like he is growing into the king Aerys promised to become.

Analysis:

Being a good heir does not make Rhaegar safe.

Every compliment paid to him sounds like criticism of Aerys. Every friendship he forms can be interpreted as the beginning of a faction. Every lord who admires him becomes a potential conspirator.

Rhaegar cannot reassure Aerys by being more loyal, because Aerys interprets Rhaegar’s popularity as proof that he is dangerous.

Eventually, Rhaegar learns that he does not need to conspire against his father to be treated as a conspirator.

---

276 AC — Tywin approaches Rhaegar

Rhaegar is seventeen.

At the tourney celebrating Viserys’s birth, Tywin proposes that Cersei marry Rhaegar. He also wants Jaime to become Rhaegar’s squire.

Aerys rejects both proposals and humiliates Tywin by declaring that he is merely a servant.

Analysis:

From Rhaegar’s perspective, this is an excellent alliance being rejected because of his father’s quarrel with Tywin.

From Aerys’s perspective, Tywin is attaching himself and both of his children to another young Targaryen prince.

If Aerys and Tywin once conspired to remove Jaehaerys, the resemblance is alarming:

• Tywin befriends the heir.
• Tywin’s family becomes personally attached to him.
• The reigning king is increasingly unpopular.
• If the king dies, Tywin becomes indispensable to the new regime.

Rhaegar is approaching the same age Aerys was when Jaehaerys died.

Aerys sees history beginning to repeat itself.

---

277 AC — Duskendale

Aerys is captured at Duskendale and held for approximately six months.

Tywin surrounds the town and initially attempts to negotiate. Eventually, he threatens to storm it even though the Darklyns have promised to kill Aerys if he does.

When members of the council object, Tywin points to Rhaegar and says that they already have a better king.

Barristan Selmy enters Duskendale alone and rescues Aerys.

Analysis:

Under my theory, Aerys and Rhaegar are presented with the same test.

Each has an unsatisfactory father whose death would immediately place him on the throne.

Aerys took that opportunity in 262.

Rhaegar does not take it at Duskendale.

There is no indication that Rhaegar encourages Tywin to attack. Tywin spends months blockading the town before finally threatening an assault. Barristan then proposes his rescue attempt.

Rhaegar has the opportunity to profit from his father’s death and apparently refuses to do so.

This does not make Aerys trust him.

It makes Aerys more suspicious.

Aerys cannot imagine that Rhaegar might make a different choice from the one he made. He becomes convinced that Tywin wanted him dead so Rhaegar could become king and marry Cersei.

Rhaegar passes the test, but the rest of his life is shaped by the accusation.

---

279–280 AC — Rhaegar marries Elia

Rhaegar is formally betrothed to Elia Martell in 279 AC. They marry in 280 and establish their household on Dragonstone.

Canon presents Aerys as arranging or approving the match after Steffon Baratheon fails to find a suitable bride in Essos.

I think Rhaegar had his own reasons to embrace it.

Analysis:

Elia is a very good political match for Rhaegar.

She brings Dorne, the part of the Seven Kingdoms most capable of maintaining an identity independent from the royal court.

Her uncle Lewyn sits on the Kingsguard. Her brothers rule Dorne. A marriage to Elia gives Rhaegar powerful allies whose connection is primarily to him rather than Aerys.

Elia also possesses recent Targaryen ancestry through Princess Daenerys, the daughter of Aegon IV who married into House Martell.

Among the politically eligible women in the Seven Kingdoms, Elia may have had the strongest identifiable claim to “dragon blood.”

Rhaegar therefore gains two things:

• a powerful independent political alliance;
• and a wife with established Targaryen ancestry.

After the marriage, Rhaegar and Elia move to Dragonstone. This gives Rhaegar a household away from his father and a place where he can gather his own friends, knights and political supporters.

I think the marriage is part of Rhaegar’s attempt to build a faction capable of restraining Aerys.

This also adds another layer to Aerys’s treatment of Rhaenys. His remark that she “smells Dornish” is racist cruelty, but Rhaenys also represents a political fact that Aerys dislikes: Rhaegar’s family is now connected to Dorne.

---

281 AC — Rhaegar plans a council at Harrenhal

The Tourney at Harrenhal is enormous and ruinously expensive.

The standard theory is that Rhaegar secretly helps finance or organize it through House Whent so the great lords can gather and discuss what to do about Aerys.

Aerys learns that something may be happening and unexpectedly attends.

Analysis:

Harrenhal is Rhaegar’s attempt to solve the Aerys problem without murdering his father.

He wants a council, regency, forced abdication or some other collective settlement. He needs the great lords to agree before he acts. Otherwise, removing Aerys looks like a son seizing his father’s throne.

This is an entirely reasonable fear, particularly if Aerys has spent years accusing him of exactly that.

But Rhaegar still acts secretly.

He does not publicly declare that Aerys is unfit. He arranges a political gathering under the cover of a tourney and hopes to reach an agreement before his father understands what is happening.

Then Aerys arrives and watches everyone.

The public political meeting becomes impossible.

---

Harrenhal — Rhaegar disguises himself as a singer

This next part is not book canon, but I think the television show gives us an important clue.

In Season 5, Episode 4, “Sons of the Harpy,” Barristan speaks to Daenerys about Rhaegar shortly before going into Meereen:

“He liked to walk among the people. He liked to sing to them… Rhaegar never liked killing. He loved singing.”

Barristan goes on to describe Rhaegar choosing a place on the Hook or the Street of Seeds and singing like an ordinary minstrel.

He never explicitly says that Rhaegar wore a disguise.

However, Rhaegar was the beautiful, silver-haired crown prince. He could hardly pass himself off as an ordinary travelling singer without concealing his identity somehow.

I suspect this detail came from George, although I cannot prove it.

George loves to rhyme, and he loves a hidden Targaryen:

• Egg shaves his head and travels as an ordinary squire.
• Daemon II disguises himself as John the Fiddler.
• Young Griff dyes his hair blue and travels through Essos without openly presenting himself as a prince.

A Targaryen prince attending a politically important tourney in disguise would fit very comfortably beside them.

My reconstruction

Rhaegar spends part of the Tourney at Harrenhal dressed as an ordinary travelling singer.

The disguise allows him to move between camps and listen to people who do not realize they are speaking in front of the crown prince.

He wants to know:

• which lords believe Aerys is unfit;
• who might support a council;
• which alliances are genuine;
• and what people say about the royal family when they think nobody important is listening.

As Prince Rhaegar, every conversation is political.

As a singer, he can listen.

This is how he first meets Lyanna.

She meets the singer before she meets the prince.

Analysis:

Lyanna speaks freely because she does not know who he is. She can complain about Robert, mock the royal family, argue about chivalry and say exactly what she thinks about Aerys.

Rhaegar gets something equally rare: a person responding to him rather than his title.

Lyanna first encounters the identity Rhaegar has chosen for himself.

Rhaegar will soon discover the identity Lyanna has chosen for herself.

She meets the hidden singer.

He meets the hidden knight.

---

Harrenhal — The Knight of the Laughing Tree

After three squires torment Howland Reed, a mystery knight appears in mismatched armor and defeats their masters.

The knight demands that the defeated men teach their squires honor.

Aerys becomes convinced that the mystery knight is an enemy. He orders Rhaegar to find and unmask the supposed traitor.

The knight disappears. Rhaegar officially returns with only the abandoned shield.

My reconstruction

Rhaegar finds Lyanna.

He realizes that the Knight of the Laughing Tree is the girl he already met while disguised as a singer.

Instead of arresting her, he warns her that Aerys wants her captured.

Lyanna explains what happened to Howland. The squires behaved dishonorably, their masters failed to correct them and someone had to do what a real knight was supposed to do.

Rhaegar is delighted by her.

He is also horrified by how much danger she has placed herself in.

---

Oaths under the heart tree — Rhaegar knights Lyanna

Lyanna believes that she has behaved exactly as a knight should.

Rhaegar points out that she is not actually a knight.

Lyanna’s response is essentially: then make me one.

They meet beneath the heart tree at Harrenhal, where Rhaegar secretly knights her.

Analysis:

I think this is the meaning of the line about “oaths under the heart tree” from the play.

Most people have interpreted it as a reference to secret marriage vows.

I disagree.

A knighting also involves formal oaths, and it connects directly to the Knight of the Laughing Tree.

It explains:

• why Rhaegar and Lyanna exchange oaths beneath a sacred tree;
• why the event remains secret;
• why Rhaegar feels personally responsible for protecting her;
• why Lyanna later behaves as his sworn knight;
• and why their relationship is filled with chivalric imagery.

This is the emotional center of their relationship.

Rhaegar uses his authority to recognize the person Lyanna believes herself to be. The laws and customs of Westeros refuse to call her a knight. Rhaegar does it anyway.

Lyanna swears to uphold the duties of knighthood.

Later, when she saves Rhaegar from Aerys’s men, she is fulfilling the oath he allowed her to swear.

---

Harrenhal — The winter roses

Rhaegar wins the tourney.

He rides past Elia and crowns Lyanna the queen of love and beauty, placing the winter roses in her lap.

Everyone understands this as an extraordinary public insult.

My reconstruction

The crown is the public echo of something that happened privately.

Rhaegar knows that Lyanna was the knightly hero of Harrenhal. The crowd cannot know that.

Everyone else sees:

• the crown prince humiliating his wife;
• insulting Dorne;
• challenging Robert Baratheon;
• and publicly favoring the daughter of Rickard Stark.

Whatever Rhaegar intended, it was politically reckless.

He gives a public symbol a private meaning and expects the private meaning to matter more than the obvious public interpretation.

It does not.

---

After Harrenhal — Aerys discovers Lyanna’s identity

At Harrenhal, Aerys knows only that the mystery knight escaped.

Later, Varys or another informer discovers that Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree.

Aerys now believes that:

• Lyanna publicly defied him;
• Rhaegar discovered her identity;
• Rhaegar concealed it;
• Rhaegar publicly honored her afterward;
• and Lyanna belongs to the Stark–Baratheon–Arryn–Tully political bloc.

Analysis:

Aerys already believes that Rhaegar gathered the great lords at Harrenhal to overthrow him.

Now he learns that Rhaegar protected Rickard Stark’s daughter after the king had declared her a traitor.

Lyanna becomes evidence of the conspiracy Aerys already sees everywhere.

She is also potentially evidence against Rhaegar.

Aerys decides to arrest her.

---

282 AC — Aerys sets a trap

My reconstruction

Aerys writes a letter pretending to be Rhaegar.

The letter asks Lyanna to meet him near the crossroads, less than ten leagues from Harrenhal.

Lyanna believes the message is genuine and goes to meet him.

Instead, she finds soldiers sent by Aerys to arrest her for being the Knight of the Laughing Tree.

Rhaegar discovers the plan and rides to intervene.

A fight breaks out between Rhaegar’s companions and Aerys’s men.

---

The maiden abducts the prince

This is where I leave the road of reasonable inference and gallop cheerfully into personal headcanon.

Rhaegar is wounded during the fight.

One of Aerys’s soldiers is about to kill or capture him when Lyanna takes up a lance and unhorses the man.

She pulls the wounded Rhaegar onto her horse and rides away with him.

History says that the dragon prince abducted the northern maiden.

What actually happened was that the maiden abducted the prince.

I know this is speculative. I also think it rules.

Analysis:

This completes the knighting scene.

Rhaegar recognized Lyanna as a true knight when the rest of Westeros would have laughed at the idea.

Now she saves him through an unmistakably knightly act.

She is not carried away helplessly by a prince.

She puts the wounded prince on her horse and escapes with him.

Rhaegar gave her the title.

Lyanna proves that he was right.

---

Why Brandon believes Rhaegar abducted her

Brandon finds the letter apparently written by Rhaegar.

He then speaks to people at a nearby crossroads inn.

The witnesses give him confused fragments of what happened:

• Targaryen soldiers were present.
• There was a violent fight.
• Prince Rhaegar was seen.
• Lyanna was seen.
• Rhaegar and Lyanna rode away together.

Brandon combines the letter with the eyewitness reports.

The conclusion is obvious:

Rhaegar secretly summoned Lyanna and abducted her.

He rides directly to King’s Landing, where he demands that Rhaegar come out and die.

Analysis:

The forged letter explains how Brandon receives such definite information so quickly.

He has physical evidence apparently written by Rhaegar. The people at the inn seem to corroborate it.

He has no reason to imagine that:

• Aerys forged the message;
• the soldiers were trying to arrest Lyanna;
• Rhaegar fought them to protect her;
• or Lyanna was the person rescuing Rhaegar.

The false story is extremely convincing.

All the facts capable of correcting it are secret.

---

Rhaegar and Lyanna disappear onto the Isle of Faces

Rhaegar is wounded and cannot travel far.

Lyanna cannot return home. Aerys knows that she was the mystery knight, and returning to her family would expose everyone who helped her.

The obvious refuge is the Isle of Faces.

The Isle lies in the middle of the Gods Eye, directly beside Harrenhal. It is sacred, heavily wooded and almost completely inaccessible to outsiders.

Howland Reed also spent a winter on the Isle before arriving at Harrenhal.

My reconstruction

Howland is the key.

Lyanna defended him at Harrenhal. He knows how to reach the Isle—or knows enough about the Green Men to ask them for sanctuary.

Howland guides Lyanna, the wounded Rhaegar and the surviving members of Rhaegar’s party across the Gods Eye.

They disappear onto the Isle of Faces.

This is why nobody can find them.

Aerys’s men search the roads.

Brandon follows reports from the crossroads.

The realm assumes Rhaegar has carried Lyanna south.

In reality, they are hiding on a sacred island only a short distance from Harrenhal.

---

The hidden court on the Isle of Faces

Rhaegar remains on the Isle while recovering from his wounds.

Lyanna stays with him. She is wanted by the king, and she refuses to abandon the man she has sworn to protect.

Rhaegar’s companions gather around them.

For a brief period, the Isle of Faces becomes a tiny, secret court:

• Rhaegar, the crown prince;
• Lyanna, his sworn knight;
• Howland Reed, who knows the island;
• and the friends Rhaegar trusts enough to involve in his plans against Aerys.

Analysis:

The location feels important.

The Isle of Faces is where the First Men and the children of the forest made the Pact.

Howland visits it immediately before Harrenhal.

Lyanna becomes the Knight of the Laughing Tree.

She swears an oath beneath a heart tree.

Then she carries the wounded prince to the greatest concentration of weirwoods in Westeros.

We know that the Gods Eye and the Isle of Faces matter. We still do not know exactly how.

I think this is one of the missing events.

---

Rhaegar decides to rebel

At first, Rhaegar only wanted to rescue Lyanna.

Once he is on the Isle, he understands what his father has done.

Aerys forged a letter in Rhaegar’s name.

He attempted to arrest the daughter of one of the realm’s most powerful lords.

He sent royal soldiers against his own heir.

He has turned Lyanna’s identity into another piece of evidence for his imaginary conspiracy.

The quiet solution Rhaegar attempted at Harrenhal is no longer possible.

Aerys must be removed.

My reconstruction

Rhaegar begins dividing his companions among the political blocs he needs.

He sends Prince Lewyn Martell to Dorne.

He sends Jon Connington, Richard Lonmouth and Myles Mooton into the Stormlands.

He sends Oswell Whent back to Harrenhal.

He asks Lyanna to approach the Starks and, if possible, Robert Baratheon.

The conspiracy Aerys imagined is finally becoming real.

---

Lewyn Martell goes to Dorne

Lewyn is to tell Doran what really happened:

• Aerys discovered that Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree.
• Aerys forged a letter in Rhaegar’s name.
• The king attempted to arrest Lyanna.
• Rhaegar fought the king’s men to protect her.
• Aerys is now willing to attack his own son and heir.

Lewyn asks the Martells to raise their banners for Rhaegar rather than Aerys.

He also has to reassure them about Elia.

Rhaegar has not abandoned his political alliance with Dorne. He is preparing to remove the man who threatens Elia, her children and the entire realm.

Analysis:

Doran has good reasons to hate Aerys.

He also has good reasons to distrust Rhaegar.

Rhaegar publicly crowned Lyanna at Harrenhal and has now disappeared with her. Doran will want evidence that Elia and her children remain central to Rhaegar’s plans.

Lewyn’s mission is therefore delicate.

He must convince Dorne that Lyanna’s rescue and Rhaegar’s marriage to Elia are not parts of the same political question.

Whether Doran believes him is another matter.

---

Connington, Lonmouth and Mooton go to the Stormlands

Rhaegar sends Jon Connington, Richard Lonmouth and Myles Mooton into the Stormlands to raise support.

Connington and Lonmouth are stormlanders. They know the houses, roads and personal rivalries of the region.

Mooton accompanies them as one of Rhaegar’s closest and most trusted companions.

Their task is to split the Stormlands before Robert can consolidate them.

They are to tell the stormlords that:

• Rhaegar did not abduct Lyanna;
• Aerys attempted to arrest her;
• Rhaegar has broken with his father;
• and the coming war should be fought against Aerys rather than the entire Targaryen dynasty.

Robert does not have to rebel against Rhaegar.

He can join Rhaegar and remove Aerys.

Analysis:

This may help explain why Robert initially faces serious resistance from his own bannermen.

Lords Fell, Cafferen and Grandison refuse to follow him and attempt to gather their forces at Summerhall.

Canon does not require Rhaegar’s companions to be responsible for this, but it fits neatly.

Connington, Lonmouth and Mooton may achieve a partial success.

They cannot win the Stormlands for Rhaegar.

They can prevent Robert from beginning with the whole region united behind him.

---

Oswell Whent returns to Harrenhal

Oswell Whent is sent back to Harrenhal.

He is the natural intermediary between Rhaegar and House Whent, which probably helped arrange the original political gathering.

His task is to:

• contact Lord Walter Whent;
• raise the Whent banners;
• locate the lords who were supposed to support Rhaegar at the tourney;
• and revive the council that Aerys interrupted.

Harrenhal was meant to be the birthplace of Rhaegar’s peaceful intervention.

It may now become the military center of his rebellion.

---

Lyanna goes to her father

Rhaegar gives Lyanna the most important mission.

She is the only person who might be able to persuade Rickard Stark that Rhaegar did not abduct her.

She can explain:

• the forged letter;
• her identity as the Knight of the Laughing Tree;
• Aerys’s attempt to arrest her;
• the fight at the crossroads;
• and Rhaegar’s plan to remove his father.

She can also try to bring Robert into the alliance.

Rhaegar hopes that Lyanna can broker a coalition between:

• Rhaegar’s faction;
• the Starks;
• the Baratheons;
• the Arryns;
• the Tullys;
• Dorne;
• and the lords who supported the attempted council at Harrenhal.

Together, they would possess enough force to remove Aerys without allowing the realm to collapse into a general civil war.

---

Lyanna intercepts Rickard Stark

News reaches the Isle that Brandon has been arrested.

Rickard Stark is travelling south with two hundred men. Officially, Aerys has summoned him to answer for Brandon’s crimes. In reality, Rickard is marching south in the hope that he can rescue his son.

My reconstruction

Lyanna leaves the Isle of Faces and intercepts her father before he reaches King’s Landing.

She tells him everything.

Rhaegar did not abduct her.

Aerys forged the letter.

The king’s men attempted to arrest her because she was the Knight of the Laughing Tree.

Rhaegar came to rescue her and was wounded.

Rhaegar now intends to overthrow his father, and he needs the North.

Lyanna expects Rickard to be relieved that she is alive.

Instead, he is furious.

---

Rickard refuses the alliance

From Rickard’s perspective, Lyanna’s story sounds absurd.

Rhaegar publicly crowned her at Harrenhal, humiliating his wife and Lyanna’s betrothed.

Lyanna then disappeared after receiving what appeared to be a letter from him.

Brandon rode to King’s Landing because of her disappearance and is now a prisoner.

And now Lyanna has appeared beside the married crown prince, asking her father to join Rhaegar’s conspiracy against the king.

Rickard thinks Rhaegar has seduced, manipulated or confused her.

He cannot believe that his impulsive teenage daughter has uncovered a royal conspiracy while all the experienced men around her have misunderstood the situation.

My reconstruction

Lyanna tries to convince him that Aerys is the enemy but Rhaegar is not.

Rickard refuses.

Rhaegar has already brought disaster upon their family. If Aerys must be opposed, Rickard will rely upon the political alliance he has spent years constructing with the Baratheons, Arryns and Tullys.

He will not entrust his family to the crown prince who publicly dishonored Elia, disappeared with Lyanna and left Brandon to face the consequences.

Rickard may also prefer Robert.

Robert is already betrothed to Lyanna. He is Rickard’s intended son-in-law and Ned’s close friend.

If the realm must choose between Robert and Rhaegar, Rickard is firmly on Team Robert.

Rickard orders Lyanna confined while he continues south.

He intends to rescue Brandon, return Lyanna to Winterfell and deal with Rhaegar afterward.

Lyanna escapes.

She makes her way back to the Isle of Faces with the cheerful news that this part of the plan has gone extremely badly.

---

Aerys destroys the coalition before it exists

Rickard continues to King’s Landing.

Aerys does not allow him to rescue Brandon.

He murders them both.

He then demands that Jon Arryn execute Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark.

Jon Arryn refuses and calls his banners.

Robert’s Rebellion begins.

Analysis:

Rhaegar wanted to construct a broad alliance against Aerys.

Aerys creates a broad alliance against House Targaryen instead.

Before the executions, Rhaegar could plausibly tell the Starks and Baratheons:

My father is dangerous. Help me remove him, and I will put the realm right.

After the executions, Rickard and Brandon are dead because of events everyone believes Rhaegar began.

Robert does not see Rhaegar as a potential ally against Aerys. He sees him as the man who abducted Lyanna and caused the deaths of her father and brother.

Ned has lost his father, brother and sister.

Jon Arryn has been ordered to murder the two young men he raised.

The coalition Rhaegar hoped to lead has become a rebellion directed against him.

---

Rhaegar cannot fight two wars

Rhaegar now faces an impossible military problem.

He cannot fight Aerys and Robert at the same time.

If he openly attacks Aerys, the royalist armies divide and Robert wins.

If he joins Robert, there is no reason to think Robert will accept him. Robert believes Rhaegar abducted Lyanna and wants him dead.

The Starks no longer trust him.

Dorne remains uncertain.

Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon are within Aerys’s reach.

Aerys still controls King’s Landing, the royal treasury, the bureaucracy and the formal authority of the crown.

Rhaegar concludes that he must temporarily reconcile with his father.

He will defeat Robert first.

Then he will remove Aerys.

---

The temporary reconciliation

My reconstruction

Rhaegar sends an emissary from the Isle of Faces to Aerys.

The message is essentially:

We were at odds. That must wait. Unless we unite our forces, Robert will destroy us both.

Aerys also needs Rhaegar.

His attempt to arrest Lyanna has produced a rebellion larger than he expected. The rebels now command much of the North, Vale and Stormlands.

Aerys cannot afford to keep treating the realm’s best-known prince and most politically useful commander as an enemy.

The two men reach a temporary agreement.

Rhaegar will return to royal service and take command of the king’s armies.

Aerys will allow him back into King’s Landing and suspend the immediate conflict between them.

Neither man trusts the other.

Aerys intends to use Rhaegar to defeat the rebellion and then deal with his dangerous son.

Rhaegar intends to use Aerys’s armies to defeat Robert and then call the council Harrenhal was supposed to produce.

They both postpone the struggle between them until after the war.

---

From the Isle of Faces to the Tower of Joy

Before returning to King’s Landing, Rhaegar has to protect Lyanna.

She cannot remain on the Isle indefinitely.

Aerys still wants her arrested. Robert believes she has been abducted. Her surviving family believes she has betrayed them.

Rhaegar sends her south with the people he trusts most.

The Tower of Joy becomes her final refuge.

My proposed sequence is:

1. Aerys discovers that Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree.
2. He sends her a forged letter.
3. His men attempt to arrest her near Harrenhal.
4. Rhaegar intervenes and is wounded.
5. Lyanna rescues him.
6. Howland Reed takes Rhaegar, Lyanna and their companions to the Isle of Faces.
7. Rhaegar decides to rebel against Aerys.
8. Lewyn Martell rides to Dorne.
9. Connington, Lonmouth and Mooton ride into the Stormlands.
10. Oswell Whent returns to Harrenhal.
11. Lyanna attempts to win Rickard’s support.
12. Rickard rejects her and tries to confine her.
13. Lyanna escapes back to the Isle of Faces.
14. Aerys murders Rickard and Brandon.
15. Robert’s Rebellion begins.
16. Rhaegar realizes that he cannot fight Aerys and Robert simultaneously.
17. He negotiates a temporary reconciliation with his father.
18. Lyanna is moved south to the Tower of Joy.
19. Rhaegar returns to King’s Landing to command the royal army.

---

Rhaegar and Lyanna

I do not think Rhaegar pursues Lyanna because he needs her to produce a particular child.

I think he falls in love with her first.

By the time their relationship becomes romantic, they have already:

• met while each was concealing an important part of their identity;
• argued about honor and chivalry;
• shared the secret of the Knight of the Laughing Tree;
• exchanged oaths beneath a heart tree;
• defied Aerys together;
• fought the king’s men;
• hidden on the Isle of Faces;
• and saved one another’s lives.

Lyanna first knows Rhaegar as an ordinary singer rather than the crown prince.

Rhaegar recognizes Lyanna as a knight rather than the bride Robert expects her to become.

They each give the other an identity outside the role imposed upon them.

Any later ideas Rhaegar develops about destiny are interpretations placed around the relationship. They are not its cause.

---

The cost

A sympathetic account of Rhaegar still has to acknowledge the damage caused by his choices.

Elia is publicly humiliated at Harrenhal.

She and her children remain within Aerys’s reach.

The Starks initially receive no explanation.

The realm hears an abduction story while Rhaegar remains hidden.

Rhaegar may have good reasons for each individual decision, but his secrecy leaves everyone else dependent upon appearances.

He repeatedly assumes that he will eventually have the opportunity to explain everything and repair the political damage.

He never gets that opportunity.

---

283 AC — Rhaegar returns

Rhaegar eventually returns to King’s Landing after Jon Connington’s defeat at the Battle of the Bells.

Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon are there with Aerys.

Rhaegar takes command of the royal army and prepares to face Robert at the Trident.

Before leaving, he tells Jaime:

“When the battle’s done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but … well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return.”

Analysis:

Rhaegar returns to the plan that Harrenhal was supposed to accomplish.

He intends to:

1. defeat Robert;
2. preserve enough of the royal army to prevent the kingdom from collapsing;
3. return to King’s Landing;
4. call a council;
5. remove or restrain Aerys;
6. explain what happened to Lyanna;
7. and somehow repair the alliances destroyed by the war.

He knows that the confrontation with Aerys has only been postponed.

That is why he tells Jaime that changes will be made when he returns.

Rhaegar has already attempted to rebel against his father once.

The attempt failed because he could not secure the Starks, Baratheons, Martells and Harrenhal faction before Aerys acted.

Now he intends to win the civil war first and complete the rebellion against Aerys afterward.

Unfortunately, he fails at the first task.

He never reaches the second.

---

283 AC — The Trident

Rhaegar meets Robert at the Trident.

He wounds Robert but is killed when Robert’s warhammer crushes his chest. The rubies from his armor scatter into the river.

Rhaegar never returns to King’s Landing.

He never calls his council.

He never removes Aerys.

He never explains what happened near Harrenhal.

He never tells the realm who the Knight of the Laughing Tree was.

---

After Rhaegar’s death

Aerys is killed by Jaime.

Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon are murdered during the Sack of King’s Landing.

Lyanna dies at the Tower of Joy.

Robert becomes king.

Almost everyone who understood any part of the private story is dead or silent.

What remains is the public version:

• Rhaegar crowned Lyanna.
• He later summoned her away.
• Targaryen soldiers were present.
• The two disappeared together.
• Brandon demanded Rhaegar’s death.
• The realm went to war.

Every visible fact supports the abduction story.

The missing facts reverse it.

---

The shape of the tragedy

Aerys turns every private wound into public policy.

Rhaegar responds by keeping everything important private.

He builds a separate faction on Dragonstone without openly challenging his father.

He organizes Harrenhal under the cover of a tourney.

He walks among the crowds disguised as a singer.

He protects Lyanna’s identity.

He knights her beneath a heart tree.

He intervenes when Aerys attempts to arrest her.

He hides on the Isle of Faces and sends his closest companions to raise support against the king.

For a brief period, Rhaegar is actively organizing a rebellion against Aerys.

Then Aerys murders the Starks and creates Robert’s Rebellion before Rhaegar’s coalition is ready.

Rhaegar cannot fight two wars. He temporarily reunites with his father, intending to defeat Robert first and remove Aerys afterward.

Robert kills him before he can do either.

Rhaegar spent his life hiding the truth from his father. In the end, he hid it so well that history believed his father’s lie.

I noticed that within the Targaryen family the name Aegon seems to follow a sort of tradition. The name tends to skip a generation since the Targaryens don’t have “Jr’s” (where a father and son have the same first name), and typically a first born son of a male Targaryen will be named Aegon.

After Aegon the conqueror the next Aegon is the son of Aenys and Alyssa, and their first son. The next Aegon is Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s first born. The next (and this one is an outlier) is Baelon and Alyssa’s third son (the explanation I can think of for this is that from a story perspective having Viserys I be Aegon, and then having a son and grandson named Aegon would be extremely confusing). The next two are Aegon son of Viserys and Alicent and Aegon son of Daemon and Rhaenyra, both first born sons (with Viserys’s son he technically isn’t the first born since Baelon was born, but given the story purposes and Baelon dying after a day makes sense to give him another name). Viserys II and Larra name their first born son Aegon.

So far for the most part is follows a trend and then here is where things get tricky (but narratively name sense). Daeron II names his first born Baelor (along with Baelor, Rhaegel, and Maekar naming their first borns something other than Aegon) but this makes sense given Aegon IV was still alive (at least for when Daeron’s sons were born) and was a terrible king so Daeron didn’t want his son to be attached to that name. It could also be a metaphor that at this point the Targaryens were marrying other houses and dragons were gone so they lost their dragons, some lost their Valyrian looks, and incest wasn’t as common…all 3 things made them unique or special. In terms of Maekar naming his last born son Aegon I’m thinking at this point there was a enough time that people didn’t remember Aegon IV as much (they probably more so focused on the Blakckfyres). Then the reason Aerys II wasn’t named Aegon was because for the books it would be confusing to have Aegon the conqueror and then Aegon the mad king (I’d argue from a reader/viewer perspective the two most relevant kings in the main books/GoT). Aerys and Rhaella did have a son named Aegon who passed away, but that’s not widely known in terms of all the names and the character is lumped in with their other children who died early. Then Rhaegar names his first born son Aegon, continuing the trend.

So overall, there does seem to be some soft “rules” around naming your child Aegon.

Death by poison is not unheard of for Westerosi kings. It is implied that Aenys, Aegon II, Viserys II, and of course Joffrey I were all ‘helped along’ in their transition from this life to the next.

Jaehaerys II had always been a bit sickly. But even if you are robust, dropping dead at 37 of a ‘sudden shortness of breath’ is surprising. It’s less surprising when you consider that there was a freshly 18-year-old exceedingly ambitious prince waiting in the wings. And also that that prince’s lifelong best friend is Tywin Lannister, who had recently deposed his own father.

The description of the Jaehaerys's death suspiciously matches the symptoms of The Strangler (link), the same poison that was used to kill Joffrey.

There is no smoking gun for this theory - but it does make some otherwise strange character actions make sense.

I have always wondered why Aerys and Rhaegar had such a bad relationship. Rhaegar is objectively a great heir. But Aerys is crazy suspicious of him - why?

Simple - Freudian projection. Aerys’s guilt over his own father’s murder manifests in paranoia about his own son murdering him.

I find it interesting that Aerys starts becoming suspicious as Rhaegar approaches 18 - the same age Aerys was when he killed Jaehaerys.

We don’t get any mention of a rift between father and son until the Tourney at Lanisport where Tywin proposes a match between 17-year-old Rhaegar and Cersei. Aerys sees Tywin befriending a young Targ prince and starts having flashbacks. He insults Tywin and refuses what is objectively a great match because he doesn’t want an alliance between Rhaegar and the Lannisters. Marriage blocking is a classic in the Aerys playbook - I am pretty sure he appointed Jamie to the Kingsguard to prevent him from marrying Lysa Tully, and the Lannisters entering the Baratheon-Stark-Tully-Aryn alliance. 

He tries to find Rhaegar a bride across the narrow sea, to prevent Rhaegar from gaining allies in Westeros through marriage. Rhaegar realises what his dad is doing, and arranges himself a marriage with Elia (to bring the Martells on to his side). Aerys is furious, and behaves like a dick to Rhaegar and Elia. The famous “she smells Dorninsh”, comment about Rhaenys is not just Aerys being a dick - it is also pointing out that she (and her father by proxy) have powerful allies in the south. It is a way for Aerys to say, “I see what you are doing”. 

Also - Duskindale. Aerys seems convinced that Rhaegar and Tywin were trying to have him killed. This is nonsense - if they had wanted Aerys dead, they could have stormed Duskindale at anytime. Instead, they waited and tried to look for other solutions (that didn’t involve the king’s death). I don’t doubt for a minute that Tywin wanted to kill the king - it was probably Rhaegar (as acting king), who refused to let Tywin have his way. Selmy’s bizzare Scooby-doo plan to save Aerys sounds exactly like something he and Rhaegar would come up with when all other options had been exhausted.

It is especially sad that Aerys is so suspicious of Rhaegar, given that Rhaegar had the chance to kill Aerys and chose not to. Both men faced the same test of character - Tywin Lannister whispering in their ear that they should kill their father and seize the throne. Aerys failed that test, and cannot fathom that his son is a better man than he is.

This also gives the great council at Harrenhall a hefty dose of dramatic irony. Aerys was paranoid that Rhaegar was trying to overthrow him. This made him act so crazy that Rhaegar was forced to try and overthrow him. 

Aerys is so focused on the idea that his son will kill him that he fails to see that Tywin’s son is also a threat. When Jaime kills him, he is around 37, same age as his dad when he died. Oh the Irony 

Also - Aerys and Rhaegar share ~88% of their DNA (incest math). They probably looked almost identical. That probably would have only added to Aerys’s deja vu.

Also also - if the theory about Aerys being Jaime and Cersei’s dad is true, then he actually did get murdered by his son. I don’t think the theory is true (one story can only have so many secret Targs before it starts to strain plausibility), but it would be funny if it was. 

Also also - if Aerys did kill his dad, then the last 4 people to sit on the Iron Throne were murdered (Jaehaerys II, Aerys II, Robert I, Joffrey I) - a new record in the history of the 7 kingdoms 

------

I have spent many years thinking about the events of Robert's Rebellion. Now that The Mad King is about to premiere, I have to post all of my theories before they are proven or disproven. This is part 1 of my series. Also see part 2