Rhaegar Targaryen

Rhaegar was born at Summerhall in 259 AC, the same day a fire there killed King Aegon V, his son Prince Duncan, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard at the time. That coincidence marked him for life: people said he had been born under mourning, and those close to him remembered him as serious, almost distant.

As a boy he retreated into books more than weapons training, and only in his teens did he seem set on not falling behind as a fighter: he was knighted at seventeen and soon earned a name as a formidable swordsman. Even so, it was said his harp mattered to him more than his lance. Myles Mooton and Jon Connington were part of his circle from early on, but no one stood as close to him as Ser Arthur Dayne.

He liked to visit the ruins of Summerhall alone, harp in hand, and came back with new songs that made listeners weep. During a visit to Griffin's Roost, seat of House Connington, his songs moved the castle's women so much that Lord Armond Connington used the moment to seek Targaryen backing against his rivals. Years later Cersei Lannister would recall that the crowds cheered for him like no one else, well above her own father and the king.

At a tourney held in Lannisport for Viserys's birth, Rhaegar unhorsed a dozen skilled knights, including Ser Barristan Selmy and two of Tywin Lannister's sons, though he lost to his friend Arthur Dayne. Tywin offered to betroth Cersei to the prince; Aerys refused. At Storm's End, Rhaegar got his revenge and beat Dayne.

By the time Rhaegar reached marrying age, there was no sister left in the family to pair him with, so the king sent his cousin Lord Steffon Baratheon to Essos to look for a bride of Valyrian blood. The search came up empty: he found no candidate he considered of sufficiently noble birth.

In 279 AC Rhaegar was formally betrothed to the Dornish princess Elia Martell, sister of Prince of Dorne Doran Martell, and they married the following year at the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing. Aerys did not attend, saying he felt unsafe outside the Red Keep even with his Kingsguard nearby. He would not let Viserys go either.

The couple settled at Dragonstone instead of the Red Keep, and that alone started rumors that the prince was plotting against his father, or that the king meant to disinherit him in favor of Viserys. When Rhaegar brought his first daughter, Rhaenys, to meet her grandparents, Rhaella welcomed her warmly; Aerys refused even to hold her, complaining that she "smelled Dornish".

That same year Lord Walter Whent announced an enormous tourney at Harrenhal, grander than his fortune seemed able to cover, and word spread that Rhaegar was secretly funding it, hoping to gather enough lords to force some kind of council over his father's madness. Around then his second child was born, Prince Aegon; Maester Aemon would later recall that Rhaegar saw the boy as the prince that was promised of an old prophecy.

At the tourney of Harrenhal, Rhaegar did not lose a single joust, not even against Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. At the end, he crowned Lyanna Stark Queen of Love and Beauty instead of his wife Elia, placing a wreath of winter roses on her.

To the king's counselors who already suspected the tourney was cover for something else, the gesture confirmed that Rhaegar was courting the north's support. To Lyanna's brothers, it was simply an insult.

In early 281 AC, Rhaegar rode off with half a dozen of his closest friends toward the Riverlands. There he crossed paths with Lyanna Stark again.

For the first month of the war, no one knew where Rhaegar was. Rumor placed him in the south with Lyanna, at a place that came to be known as the Tower of Joy. Aerys ordered Ser Gerold Hightower to find him, but Rhaegar chose to leave Hightower, Arthur Dayne, and Oswell Whent there to guard Lyanna, and rode off to war alone.

When he finally marched to the Trident, he was joined by the three Kingsguard knights still in the capital: Ser Jonothor Darry, Prince Lewyn Martell, and Ser Barristan Selmy; Jaime Lannister stayed behind in King's Landing watching the king. His army numbered around forty thousand men, many untested; the rebels were somewhat fewer but all seasoned fighters.

In the battle, Rhaegar fought Robert Baratheon hand to hand. Robert's warhammer brought him down and scattered the rubies of his armor across the river, and the ford where he fell has been called the Ruby Ford ever since.

Shortly after, during the sack of King's Landing, Ser Gregor Clegane killed Princess Elia along with her small son Aegon. Their daughter Rhaenys died too, dragged out from her hiding place under Rhaegar's bed.

Rhaegar's body was burned, as Targaryen custom demanded.

Years later, those who remembered him were still split between respect and grudge. Ser Jorah Mormont summed it up in a line that became famous: "Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died." Robert Baratheon, for his part, admitted: "In my dreams, I kill him every night. A thousand deaths will still be less than he deserves."

Long after, his sister Daenerys, whom he never knew, named one of her three dragons Rhaegal in his memory.

In one of the visions Daenerys had in the House of the Undying, she saw Rhaegar talking with Elia about what they would name their son and what future awaited him. In it, Rhaegar said: "the dragon has three heads", and that there had to be one more.

Another of her visions showed a dying prince falling into water as rubies fell from his chest like drops of blood, murmuring a woman's name with his last breath. That image is usually read as Rhaegar's death at the Trident.