lyannas:

It drives me up the wall to see people call Lyanna selfish, stupid, or hypocritical. It does not matter you think, whether you believe she went willingly with the intention of being romantic with Rhaegar or you believe she went in order to find personal freedom, I don’t care. Hearing her being called any of those things gets on my nerves.

What people fail to grasp is the fact that men own women in ASOIAF. That’s not an exaggeration. They can force them to marry, lock them in towers, force them into convents, they can rape and beat their wives, and all with impunity. Very rarely do women have personal freedom. They are almost always ruled by men.

There are COUNTLESS examples of this. To name a few:

1. 13 year old Daenerys was forced into marriage with an older Drogo, sold by her brother, Viserys
2. 13 year old Sansa was forced into a marriage with an older Tyrion, both forced into it by Tywin Lannister
3. Baelor the Blessed locked his sisters in a tower so he wouldn’t lust after them
4. Rhaella, aged 12, was forced to marry her brother Aerys by her father
5. Jeyne Poole, aged 13/14, forced to marry Ramsay Snow by a mixed effort between the Boltons, Lannisters, and Petyr Baelish
6. Alys Karstark, aged 16, was almost forced into a marriage with her cousin before she ran away
7. Quentyn Ball forced his wife to join the Silent Sisters so that he would be eligible for the Kingsguard
8. Before his death, Tywin Lannister was looking for another man to marry his 30+ year old daughter Cersei, who did not want to remarry
9. Donella Hornwood was forced to marry Ramsay Snow, dies of starvation in a locked room
10. Naerys Targaryen asked to be released from her wedding vows after giving her brother-husband an heir, was refused despite the fact that they knew another pregnancy could kill her (and Aegon did not love her anyways)

The system works against women by handing their autonomy over to the men around them. Lyanna did not want to marry Robert, knew that she would be unhappy with him, but also knew that she would be forced to marry him regardless of her feelings on the matter. Like most other highborn girls, she was her father’s property, to be traded off as he saw fit. Upon marriage, she would be her husband’s property, owned by a man she already disliked and mistrusted, who we see in AGoT is irresponsible, abusive, and deflects blame at every turn.

Even in the worst case scenario, which is Lyanna and Rhaegar were in love and decided to ~run away~, guess who’s the responsible adult in this situation? Who had the power to refuse to escape with a 16 year old girl who has no means of escape on her own? Who was the husband and father of two? Who had two, then three, kingsguard knights loyally follow him from King’s Landing to Dorne? Who was the crown prince who had far, far more responsibilities than a 15 year old lord’s daughter?

Call it impulsive, call it bad foresight, call it a folly of youth, or a lapse of judgement, but don’t call it selfish. Whether out of love, or out of a desire to get away, Lyanna made a choice. She refused the shitty deal she was being given, she refused to be her father’s pawn, and made her own decision for her future. Refusing to be forced into marriage is not selfish unless you believe that girls should be ruled by their fathers and husbands.

Moreover, Lyanna paid the price with her life, at the age of 16 years old, thousands of miles away from home. That’s tragic.