#riaen

Ive always assumed that ned stark wouldve searched the red keep for lyanna or any clues where she was being kept. So lets say he finds Elia & the kids. He's just fought Robert & Jon Arryn for their acceptance of the murders. So he's not going to hand over Elia to them. Maybe she asks him to help her return home in exchange for info abt lyanna. (2/)

So Elia goes home with her children and ned takes jon snow after lyanna dies. Would Elia stay 'dead' or could a marriage be negotiated between Rhaenys and future heir. Dorne holds the advantage as Elia & the children are safe. And what side would the north be on, would ned make up with robert or will he help Elia. I just had this idea - dorne & the north are my favourite places and i adore both the Martells & Starks equally. (3/)

I think they both suffered unfairly in the war and Ive always wished they interacted more, they've got more in common with each other than with the rest of Westeros. (4/4) Sorry for the really long ask. I just wanted to know your opinion - you're one of the few blogs who have rational and sound analysis of anything pertaining to Dorne. Thanks for being awesome 😆

I think it’s more likely that Elia makes it known that she’s alive than remaining in hiding. While there might be motivation to stay in hiding after learning how brutally murdered the people mistaken for Elia and Aegon were, it’s a lot less practical for a grown woman and two children than it is for Aegon alone like in canon. Maybe any of them alone could go unnoticed. But the three of them together, in Dorne, with Elia’s family, because I really can’t imagine Doran sending her away from Sunspear to anywhere else for any reason? No way. Elia’s a grown woman and was the wife of the crown prince! She’d have been one of the most recognizable people in the country. While people would be unlikely to immediately make the leap to “oh, she looks like Princess Elia, Elia’s alive”, it would be a much easier leap to make when she’s with a son and a daughter of the right ages. So staying in hiding wouldn’t be practical or sustainable. I suspect be a safer option to be open about it, rather than risk war coming to Dorne once word got out that Doran had been harbouring fugitives. As you point out, Dorne would have the upper hand - Elia and her children are safe; invading Dorne never works out; and I highly doubt anyone is capable of fihgting another war right then. So it’s a way better option to just let everyone get used to the idea now, rather than risk it coming out once team Baratheon has had enough time to regather its strength. In that event, I think we can be sure a betrothal between Rhaenys and Robert’s future kid would be quickly negotiated.

As for Ned, I think this situation would  mean he’d have to confront who Robert really is a lot sooner than he does in canon. Robert is someone that seems like a walking contradiction until you think about it for a second and realize how true he feels to a certain type of person in our world. He’s someone that could have and should have so, so easily been better. When he was young, the person Ned knew and loved, he was handsome and talented and generous and seemed so promising. He was delighted by the birth of Mya Stone and came to see her every day, making Ned come, too, so he could show off his little daughter to his best friend. He’s the forgiving man that pardoned almost everyone that fought for Aerys. But then you get to the war and the aftermath, and you see the person Cersei knew. Robert is also the man that climbed to his throne over the corpses of children and rewarded the man that gifted him those corpses by marrying his daughter. He’s a man that violently abuses his wife and is pleased by a murdered infant with a crushed skull and sends assassins after a pregnant teenager. He can forgive so many people, but he can’t regret the murders of babies. He spends fifteen years hating the Targaryens - not just Aerys and Robert, but Rhaenys, Aegon, Viserys, Daenerys. In a world where Ned has to witness Robert raging over these children, I can see him deciding that he can’t support that. Maybe he wouldn’t outright pick a side in the sense of actively choosing to support Elia, but I think it would amount to the same thing, because he would refuse to play a part in murdering children.

Yeah, I think having the Martells and Starks interact could have been really cool. We get that incredibly brief scene with Oberyn talking to Sansa, but that’s, like, two sentences. It doesn’t delve into anything real. I would love to see Arianne and either of the Stark girls interacting.

Thank you!

There really is no excuse for whitewashing these characters. Maybe 20 years ago you could claim ignorance for not realizing the Daynes (as with all of Dorne) aren’t white, but now? Really? Now it’s either deliberate whitewashing or people are being willfully ignorant. There’s oodles of fancasting pages, references, documents, lists, etc. of actors of color out there, they’re just one Google search away.

There was once someone who fancast Alexandra Daddario as Ashara and when called out on it their excuse was, “I just think her eyes are pretty,” as though pretty eyes are a white-only thing. Never mind that howyou’d have to use Photoshop for the Daynes no matter what because no one’s eyes are purple IRL, or how, y’know, not whitewashing is more important than eye color.

And yep, I reblogged OP’s art a few days ago, it’s really beautiful. Thanks for the heads up though!

@riaen Thanks! I don’t track any special tags, just arthur x elia, elia x arthur, and their individual tags. If I miss anything, though, please let me know!

As for an ideal scenario, it’s one where they get to be together off the bat. Under normal circumstances, Arthur’s a perfectly acceptable match. He’s from a vassal house, he was the Sword of the Morning, he was directly in line for Starfall at that point after his father and brother (Edric not being born till 287), and even Princess Nymeria herself married a Dayne. Plus, in my headcanon, he squired for Prince Lewyn as well. All of which just adds to the tragedy of the ship :(

(Shameless self-promotion, I did write an AU of that scenario here.)

Though I admit I also like, vindictively, the scenario where Rhaegar dies, Elia’s named regent for her son, and hooks up with Kingsguard Arthur 😉

I headcanon Arthur as a few months younger than Elia (no real reason), but he couldn’t have been much more than that. He was a “renowned Kingsguard” at the tourney honoring Viserys’s birth in 276, so for him to get that superlative I think he’d at least have to have been in the position for a year, which puts his joining date at 275. We know that prior to Jaime the youngest KG ever was Rolland Darklyn at 16, so Arthur had to have been at least 17 when he joined. So, the latest he could have been born was 258, a year after Elia.

Personally, I have him as being born the same year as her, 257, with him becoming a knight at 15, SOTM at 16, and KG at 18. To support the latter part is that when Jaime’s talking to Loras, the KG he cites as being also 17 is Aemon the Dragonknight, not his man crush Arthur. Not definitive, of course — maybe Loras’s idol is Aemon, for instance — but it begs the question.

Oh yeah, I’ve seen a lot of people use him as Daemon Sand or Prince Naveen!!!

Oh I love Indigenous North headcanons!  @ygrittebardots also did some really nice edits of Remy Hii as Ned Stark, and I like those too!  There’s honestly nothing in canon that says they HAVE to be white, so I say fancast them however you want!