Closure is a 2019 A Song of Ice and Fire fanfic by Ketch117.
Many years after Robert's Rebellion, Ned Stark visits his sister Lyanna in a convent, where he had her locked up for the rest of her life for starting the war. She has a lot to say, but he won't enjoy hearing any of it.
It can be read here
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This fanfic provides examples of:
- Adaptational Nice Guy: In A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, Robert hates the Targaryens so much he didn't bat an eye at the brutal murders of Rhaegar's infant son and toddler daughter, calling them "dragonspawn." This version of Robert is willing to raise Lyanna's half-Targaryen son Aegon (this story's version of Jon Snow) as his ward, although it probably helps that he doesn't look Targaryen at all.
- Adaptational Villainy: In both the books and show, Lyanna is remembered with nothing but fondness and love by her family, a willful and spirited but good-hearted girl who died tragically. In this story, she is a selfish, short-sighted and scheming woman who isn't the least bit sorry for starting Robert's Rebellion and getting her father, brother and thousands of people killed.
Word of God is that the object of the story was to write Lyanna as if her motivations were more like Alicent Hightower. - Adaptational Wimp: In the books, Rhaegar is said to have been a peerless knight and warrior and while Robert did come out on top in their fight, he did receive a wound from Rhaegar bad enough that he couldn't ride for a while. In this story, he wasn't actually that good and only won victories in tourneys because his opponents didn't want to hit a prince.
- Adaptation Name Change: Jon Snow becomes Aegon Sand, officially acknowledged as a bastard Targaryen.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- In the books and the show, Ned raises Jon as his own son and loves him as much as his biological children. In this story, he doesn't consider Aegon part of his family and leaves him to be raised by Robert. This also means Catelyn and her children (Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Rickon) have no relationship with Aegon either; in the books and show, Catelyn is cold to Jon and views him as a potential threat to her children's inheritance, while his trueborn siblings love him and don't think of him as any different than them.
- In the books and the show, Robert never stops loving and pining after Lyanna, and hates Rhaegar with the passion of a thousand flaming suns for "stealing" her, long after they're both dead. In this story, once he learns she ran away with Rhaegar, his feelings of love for her evaporate. He leaves it up to Ned to deal with her, forgets about her and marries Elia instead. Since he no longer cares about Lyanna, his hatred of Rhaegar is also dialed down, and he is even willing to raise their son as his ward (while in the books, he declared that he would "kill every Targaryen he could get his hands on, until they were as dead as their dragons, and then piss on their graves").
- In the books, Rhaegar and Arthur Dayne are best friends. This version of Arthur is scornful of Rhaegar (though not to his face) and correctly predicted that Robert would flatten him if they got into a fight.
- Affectionate Nickname: Even though Ned hates his sister Lyanna because of the suffering she brought to their family, he still calls her "Lya."
- Always Someone Better: How Lyanna feels about Catelyn, her good-sister who is Happily Married to Ned, Lady of Winterfell and a loving mother of five trueborn children, the eldest of whom will be Lord of Winterfell upon coming of age. Lyanna is heiress to nothing, will be locked in a convent until she dies, and is prevented from being a mother to her only son—a bastard whose only prospects in life are joining the Citadel, the Faith or the Night's Watch.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Lyanna gripes that neither of her two suitors, Rhaegar and Robert, actually loved her. They just wanted her for her looks and ability to bear children.Lyanna: Why? Why did he [Robert] love me? He thought I was beautiful? Then perhaps he could have a statue made of me if that’s all he wanted! A statue with milk ducts that he could clamp his infants onto, and a hole he can stick himself whenever he gets the urge! That's all Rhaegar wanted either!
Ned: What else did you have to offer either of them? - Awful Wedded Life: After running away with Rhaegar, Lyanna soon discovered that being his secret second wife kinda sucked, because he was horrible at sex. She describes him as having been "a weak, indecisive man" and "a wet blanket".
- Baby Factory: Rhaegar didn't really care about either of his wives except for their ability to make children for him.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Ned points out that if Lyanna really wasn't interested in Robert, she could have told him so at the tourney of Harrenhal. He would have accepted it and the war wouldn't have happened. But she ran away with Rhaegar instead and Robert waged a war partly to get her back that killed thousands.
- Cruel Mercy: Lyanna runs away with Rhaegar because she wants to control him and make him a Puppet King while she becomes queen of Westeros. This leads to the needless deaths of her father Rickard, her brother Brandon, and countless others during Robert's Rebellion. After all is said and done, her brother Ned has the option of having her executed or tortured to death. Instead, he sentences her to live out the rest of her life in a convent with only silent sisters, maidservants, and the occasional wandering septon for company. She will never see Aegon Sand, her bastard son with Rhaegar, and she knows he will never be a king, a prince, a lord, or even a knight — when he is old enough, he will become a septon, maester, or Night's Watchman to remove him from the line of succession. She will be imprisoned in the convent until she dies of old age or jumps out the window that Ned thoughtfully put in her room in case she ever wants to end her suffering.
- Deconstruction: This story's interpretation of Lyanna could be viewed as a deconstruction of the "Tomboy Princess rebels against being forced into marriage and motherhood" and "noble girl runs away with her true love to escape an arranged marriage" clichés, at the same time. Lyanna resents that highborn girls are expected to be nothing more than wives and mothers, and that her father arranged for her to marry Robert without her consent. She wants to be Queen of Westeros, and views marrying Prince Rhaegar as the means to achieve that goal. Never mind that he already has a wife and two trueborn children, Princess Elia will probably keel over and die of illness and her children can be dealt with later. Except—oops—Rhaegar, her gallant but weak-willed prince, is no more progressive than other noblemen of the time and also views her only as a Baby Factory, so she's no better off with him than she would have been with Robert. Meanwhile, running away with Rhaegar and letting everyone think she was kidnapped has horrible consequences when her brother Brandon demands that Rhaegar give her back, leading to the execution of him and their father Rickard by the mad king Aerys II, and then the plunging of the kingdom into full-on civil war when Aerys goes and demands the heads of Ned and Robert from Jon Arryn.
- Didn't Think This Through: Aside from the whole "run away with an already-married prince who already has two legitimate children and accidentally start a civil war" thing, Ned points out another aspect of Lyanna's plan she failed to consider. For her son Aegon to inherit the Iron Throne, she would have had to kill Elia's children or have someone else do it for her. Their claim to the throne was way stronger than his, as they were trueborn, older, and would have no problem finding supporters; if push came to shove, they would have had the backing of Dorne and House Martell, their mother's family. Meanwhile, even a legitimized Aegon would have found very little support, since his mother's family, House Stark, and the North wouldn't have supported him, and there would have been nothing his mother could really offer in terms of royal favors or arranged marriages in order to forge alliances.
- Disowned Sibling: When Lyanna demanded Ned's loyalty in the name of her son, he answered that she and her bastard were no family of his and if she ever returned to the North, he'd tell Roose Bolton to give her the blood eagle.
- Driven to Suicide: Ned ordered that Lyanna's room be on a high floor with a window, so she has the option to throw herself out of it in case her suffering ever gets to be too much.
- Female Misogynist: Lyanna believes most girls are only good for being mothers and it's something easy anyone can do.
- Gilded Cage: For causing the war, Lyanna was not thrown in the black cells, sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor, or sold into sexual slavery. Instead, she was imprisoned in a convent where she has a small, comfortable room and a few of her own possessions. She has no one to speak to, save for silent sisters, septas, servants and occasionally a wandering septon.
- Hypocrite: Lyanna didn't love either Robert or Rhaegar and admits she only ran away with Rhaegar so she could be queen and make him her Puppet King. But then, she is upset they didn't love her, and believes they only saw her as someone to stick their penises in and make babies with.
- Ignored Epiphany: There are hints that Lyanna does feel guilty about causing the war and doing irreparable harm to her family, but her pride won't allow her to admit it.
- It's All About Me: Lyanna doesn't care that thousands of people—including her father and eldest brother—died during Robert's Rebellion, that her brother Ned was traumatized, or that Elia and her children would have been shunted aside (at best) or killed (at worst) for her to become queen and her son to become a king, only that she personally suffered by being locked in a tower and that the quality of her and Rhaegar's sex life was terrible.
- Leave Behind a Pistol: For starting the events that led to Robert's Rebellion and getting their father and older brother killed, Ned has Lyanna locked away in a convent for the rest of her life, in a top floor room with a single window. She can either live out the next 60-70 years of her life in that room or she can jump out of it and end it quickly.
- Locked Away in a Monastery: After Robert's Rebellion was done, Ned found out the war and destruction was Lyanna's fault. He couldn't bear to kill her, so he ordered her to be locked away in a convent for the rest of her days.
- Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Lyanna complains that Rhaegar was terrible at sex and seemed to barely want to touch her at all.
- The Man Behind the Man: A woman cannot legally rule on her own in Westeros, so Lyanna planned to become Rhaegar's queen and be the power really in charge, since he was a weak-willed man.
- Mandatory Motherhood: Lyanna hates that all noble girls in Westeros are expected to become wives and mothers, and that she was effectively given to Robert by her father without her consent.Lyanna: As for the septas who've taken charge of me, they all worship motherhood, but none of them ever experience it. Cows make good mothers and sheep suckle perfectly adequately, so what merit lies in motherhood? Any stupid girl can become a mother! It’s all that most of them are fit for! Motherhood isn’t an achievement, it’s an inevitability!
- Missing Mom: Lyanna is separated from her bastard son with Rhaegar, Aegon Sand, and will never meet him due to being locked in the convent for the rest of her life.Lyanna: Will I ever get to see my son again?
Ned: You said it yourself. You're not much of a mother. - Mother Makes You King: Lyanna wanted her bastard son Aegon to become king after his father Rhaegar, and admits she would have had Elia's children killed if that was necessary to do so. She failed in that regard, since her plot ended with Rhaegar dead, herself locked in a convent, and Aegon being raised by Robert. To prevent any remaining Targaryen supporters from declaring him the rightful king and creating a Succession Crisis, he will join the Citadel, the Night's Watch, or the Faith of the Seven when he's old enough.
- Mugging the Monster: It's implied that this would have been the case if Lyanna had attempted to remove Elia Martell and her children from the court and line of royal succession to clear the way for Aegon. They would have had the support of the other Martells and the entire region of Dorne, while House Stark would not have stood with Aegon since Ned doesn't consider him family.
- Never My Fault: Lyanna refuses to admit any responsibility for her part in starting a war that got thousands of people killed, including her father Rickard and brother Brandon.Ned: You might not have intended it, but you did. Thousands died for that, the realm bled, and good men died. A few bad ones as well, but you destroyed your own family all to try and seize power for yourself. So if no one else’s suffering is to be considered, don’t ask for consideration of yours.
Lyanna: Thousands died for father, and for Aerys. Everyone who fought in those battles for me, all three of them, are still alive. Don't lay the war at my feet. Rhaegar didn't have to say yes, he knew my situation but he did say yes anyway because it flattered his vanity, it made him feel important, that he could save his dynasty rather then preside over it's collapse. Father and Brandon didn't need to challenge Aerys, I never asked either of them to - and Aerys certainly didn't need to burn them, that's on him, not me. And as for causing the war, what a load of rubbish. I was a footnote until the singers got hold of the story, and turned me into the poor broken woman used badly by a dragon who Robert fought for and pined for from afar. I heard those songs too, right until they got hold of a new story, a princess betrayed by her husband who died cravenly begging for mercy and was replaced by a more deserving man. Would those thousands rest easier in the earth if I had loved Rhaegar? If I didn't have a choice, save the one forced upon me when he dragged me away? If it was Cersei Lannister he chose instead of me, as he'd originally intended, would the war that followed be her fault? - Point of Divergence:
- Elia survives and gets remarried to Robert after Rhaegar's death. No Robert/Cersei marriage means Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen are never born.
- Lyanna survives giving birth to her and Rhaegar's bastard son, who is named Aegon Sand instead of Jon Snow. Ned becomes aware that Lyanna wasn't "kidnapped" and ran away with Rhaegar on purpose to try and make herself queen, which led to Robert's Rebellion. Ned is very mad, so after the war he has Lyanna locked up in a convent for life and lets Aegon be raised by Robert.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- Lyanna doesn't die of mysterious unexplained circumstances (the books) or in childbirth (the show), though she might wish she did as she's now imprisoned in a convent for the rest of her life.
- Since King's Landing was never sacked, Elia Martell and her children are still alive, and she is married to Robert.
- Speak Ill of the Dead: Lyanna scornfully refers to her one-time husband Rhaegar as a weak, pathetic, boring, indecisive failure of a prince who was bad at sex and even worse on the battlefield.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Due to Elia's poor health, nobody expected her to fall pregnant again while Robert's Rebellion was raging. This kinda threw a wrench in Lyanna's plans to make her and Rhaegar's son heir to the Iron Throne.
- The Un-Favorite: After Elia conceived unexpectedly for the second time, Rhaegar started referring to his and Lyanna's child as a bastard instead of the princess he was expecting.
- War Is Hell: Ned had to experience firsthand the brutality of war and killing during Robert's Rebellion.Ned: I killed thirty men getting back to the North. I never learned their names or anything about them. I wanted to, but there wasn't time. After I called my banners I killed plenty more. Roose Bolton found me one night, sobbing in my tent. I couldn't hold down food, I kept seeing all the faces of those nameless men who died. And sometime around the Battle of the Bells, I lost count. Hundreds, probably. Thousands, if you count the men I'd ordered slaughtered.
- Would Hurt a Child: While Lyanna doesn't relish the prospect, she admits that if having Elia's children killed was necessary to secure her son's claim to the throne, she would have done it.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Even if Lyanna escapes from the convent, she can never return to the North, since her brother Ned is Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North and he blames her for the deaths of their father and other brother.
