Elia Martell + Lewyn Martell = Rhaenys
That’s why Rhaenys was killed despite not being in the line of succession. She WAS in the line of succession. Rhaegar secretly made her his heir in order to launch the coup sooner rather than later, because he can’t launch it without an heir. The problem was that by Westerosi law a daughter cannot inherit the throne, only a son. But Rhaegar didn’t have a son yet, only a daughter. But because Rhaenys and her mother are dornish, Rhaegar was going to use dornish law instead, and in dornish law the firstborn inherits regardless of its sex.
E + L = R explains what Rhaegar meant when he said “changes will be made, I should have done it long ago but it does no good to speak of roads not taken.”
“Then guard the king,” Ser Jon Darry snapped at him. “When you donned that cloak, you promised to obey.”
Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime’s shoulder. “When this 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.”
Those were the last words Rhaegar Targaryen ever spoke to him. Outside the gates an army had assembled, whilst another descended on the Trident. So the Prince of Dragonstone mounted up and donned his tall black helm, and rode forth to his doom. (AFFC Jaime I p.119)
The changes he was going to make were that he was going to name his son Aegon his heir, supplanting Rhaenys. He knew he should’ve done it as soon as Aegon was born, but he wanted to do the coup as soon as possible and Rhaenys was all he had for an heir when setting up the coup.
E + L = R is the reason King Aerys said Rhaenys “smells dornish” when Rhaegar presented her to him.
When Prince Rhaegar and his new wife chose to take up residence on Dragonstone instead of the Red Keep, rumors flew thick and fast across the Seven Kingdoms. Some claimed that the crown prince was planning to depose his father and seize the Iron Throne for himself, whilst others said that King Aerys meant to disinherit Rhaegar and name Viserys heir in his place. Nor did the birth of King Aerys’s first grandchild, a girl named Rhaenys, born on Dragonstone in 280 AC, do aught to reconcile father and son. When Prince Rhaegar returned to the Red Keep to present his daughter to his own mother and father, Queen Rhaella embraced the babe warmly, but King Aerys refused to touch or hold the child and complained that she “smells Dornish.” (TWOIAF p.121)
Aerys KNEW that the father was Lewyn not Rhaegar, and that’s what he meant by it. This was his way of saying ‘I know Lewyn is the father not you.’ Because Lewyn being the father means Rhaenys is not 50% dornish 50% Targaryen, she’s 100% dornish. Aerys wasn’t being racist, he was telling Rhaegar that he knows who the baby’s real father is, and showing him that he’s not happy about it but that he’s not in a hurry to tell the secret either.
E + L = R is the reason Arianne Martell has a dream about having sex with her uncle Oberyn.
“My uncle brought me here, with Tyene and Sarella.” The memory made Arianne smile. “He caught some vipers and showed Tyene the safest way to milk them for their venom. Sarella turned over rocks, brushed sand off the mosaics, and wanted to know everything there was to know about the people who had lived here.”
“And what did you do, princess?” asked Spotted Sylva.
I sat beside the well and pretended that some robber knight had brought me here to have his way with me, she thought, a tall hard man with black eyes and a widow’s peak. The memory made her uneasy. “I dreamed,” she said, “and when the sun went down I sat cross-legged at my uncle’s feet and begged him for a story.” (AFFC The Queenmaker p.299)
Elia is the story’s primary Martell princess from the past, and Arianne is the story’s primary Martell princess in the present. The Martell princess in the present is mirroring the Martell princess in the past. Arianne having a latent desire to have sex with her uncle Oberyn is a clue that Elia had sex with her uncle Lewyn.
E + L = R is the reason Aerys thinks Lewyn Martell betrayed Rhaegar at the Trident.
Birds flew and couriers raced to bear word of the victory at the Ruby Ford. When the news reached the Red Keep, it was said that Aerys cursed the Dornish, certain that Lewyn had betrayed Rhaegar. (TWOIAF p.129)
Because Lewyn DID betray Rhaegar at the Trident. Because Lewyn knows that as a sworn knight of the kingsguard he broke his vows when he fathered a child. As the story of Lucamore the Lusty shows us, the penalty for that can be as harsh as castration and the Wall. But as long as Rhaenys was Rhaegar’s heir, Lewyn’s secret was safe, because neither Queen Elia nor Queen Rhaenys would let that secret get out or be repeated while Rhaenys’s claim to the throne depends upon her father being Rhaegar. But once Rhaegar said to Jaime that “changes will be made” Jonothor leaked the word to Lewyn and Lewyn knew what the changes would be. Rhaegar is changing his heir from Rhaenys to Aegon, and suddenly Lewyn’s nuts are on the line again. With Rhaenys being dornish and Aegon being named heir, Aegon and his loyalists are going to make sure everyone knows Rhaenys’s father is really Lewyn not Rhaegar, and then Lewyn will be in big trouble. Lewyn couldn’t let that come to pass, so he made sure Rhaegar died before Rhaegar could change his heir to Aegon.
This whole situation from Robert’s Rebellion era is a mirror of Cersei, Jaime, Robert and Joffrey in the present day. Jaime is a kingsguard who is the real father of Joffrey the supposed rightful heir of king Robert. Lewyn is a kingsguard who is the real father of Rhaenys the supposed rightful heir of king-to-be Rhaegar.
E + L = R explains why we get that detail from Arianne about Lewyn having a paramour.
“I never had the honor to know Prince Lewyn,” Ser Arys said, “but all agree that he was a great knight.”
“A great knight with a paramour. She is an old woman now, but she was a rare beauty in her youth, men say.” (AFFC The Soiled Knight p.193)
It’s character evidence that Lewyn is a sexual deviant. You know what else is sexually deviant? Having sex with and impregnating your niece.
E+L=R explains why we get that detail that Lewyn would always tickle child Arianne until she can’t breathe.
“I will not soil my cloak.”
“Yes,” she said, “that fine white cloak. You forget, my great-uncle wore the same cloak. He died when I was little, yet I still remember him. He was as tall as a tower and used to tickle me until I could not breathe for laughing.” (AFFC The Soiled Knight p.193)
Tickling his niece until she can’t breathe for laughing is character evidence that he likes overwhelming his nieces with physical pleasure. It’s a metaphor for having sex with his other and older niece, Elia.
I wrote this fast and sloppy. Sorry it isn’t up to the quality I normally aspire to. I’m just getting it out there. Maybe I’ll come back and do it justice some day.
Audio notes where I figured these things out: https://www.tumblr.com/applesanddragons/784847208185987073/apples-and-dragons-elia-martell?source=share
Update Dec 17, 2025
In ACOK Tyrion IV, Varys gives Tyrion a “shrewd look” and says Elia “cried a certain name when they came for her.”
“A council seat is not to be despised,” Varys admitted, “yet will it be enough to make a proud man forget his sister’s murder?”
“Why forget?” Tyrion smiled. “I’ve promised to deliver his sister’s killers, alive or dead, as he prefers. After the war is done, to be sure.”
Varys gave him a shrewd look. “My little birds tell me that Princess Elia cried a . . . certain name . . . when they came for her.”
“Is a secret still a secret if everyone knows it?” In Casterly Rock, it was common knowledge that Gregor Clegane had killed Elia and her babe. They said he had raped the princess with her son’s blood and brains still on his hands.
Tyrion is worried that House Martell and Dorne will side with Renly Baratheon in the war. In an attempt to win House Martell and Dorne to the crown’s side, Tyrion plans to give Oberyn Martell a seat on the King’s Small Council, and to deliver Elia’s killers to Oberyn. Then Varys replies like this.
Varys gave him a shrewd look. “My little birds tell me that Princess Elia cried a . . . certain name . . . when they came for her.”
Varys gives Tyrion a shrewd look, and then with hesitation he mentions a mystery name that Elia cried when her killers came for her, but he doesn’t say the name. He censors himself with the phrase “a certain name”.
Since Varys is working as Master of Whisperers for King Joffrey and House Lannister, and since Gregor Clegane is a soldier of House Lannister, the reason for Varys’s hesitation and self-censoring appears to be that he’s afraid to get in trouble with his bosses, House Lannister. Tywin Lannister would probably not appreciate having Gregor’s crime being talked about using Gregor’s name, because Gregor’s guilt is a threat not only to Gregor, who is Tywin’s asset, but to Tywin, because as a general rule, and certainly during an event as important as the sack of King’s Landing, Gregor only acts on the orders of Tywin Lannister.
So, what is the thing we’re interpreting here? We’re interpreting the cause of Varys’s hesitation, or ellipses (…), to be precise. There are a lot of things an ellipses can mean, but what these ellipses appear to mean is that Varys is hesitating before self-censoring.
Tyrion thinks the name was Gregor Clegane because Gregor is one of the two men who “came for her” and killed her and her children. Amory Lorch was the other. In Tyrion’s interpretation, Elia’s crying of a name was an attempt to stop Gregor and/or Amory from attacking her and/or her children.
But when you put yourself in Elia’s shoes, that doesn’t make sense. Gregor has already charged into the city, the castle, and the room with the specific intention to carry out the orders to kill Elia and her children, and he has already killed many people before this. Considering all that, how is Elia shouting Gregor’s name at Gregor going to stop him, or persuade him to stop? It seems extremely unlikely, though perhaps worth a try anyway. In the end, this possibility feels very weak and implausible.
Another possibility is that Elia’s crying of a certain name was meant as a call for help. In that interpretation, the name could be the name of somebody nearby who might hear her and come to her aid, such as a guard or Kingsguard. But upon further thought that interpretation makes little or no sense either, because Gregor is already there and would have already fought and defeated any guards before being able to enter the room.
In the interpretation of Elia’s intention for crying a name, there are three categories of possibilities.
- A command to stop the killer/s.
- A cry for help against the killer/s.
- A plea to stop the killer/s.
We have just ruled out categories 1 and 2, so the only category left that can make sense as Elia’s intention or motivation for crying a name is the 3rd one. Elia was pleading for the killer/s to stop.
Knowing that, I can see that this mysterious line from Varys in ACOK was a subtle clue that Rhaenys’s father was Lewyn Martell rather than Rhaegar.
The name Elia was shouting at Gregor wasn’t Gregor, it was Lewyn. Elia was crying that Lewyn is the children’s father, in a desperate attempt to save them from being killed by Gregor and Amory. Because since Lewyn is the father, that means the kids do not have a claim to the throne, because they’re full Martell rather than half Targaryen, they’re not the son of the Prince, and they’re not even legitimate, and therefore they are not a threat to the rebel side of the war, who will want to kill anyone whose claim could challenge the claim of the king they put on the throne after they win the war.
Though this paternity reveal would only be true of Rhaenys and not Aegon, Gregor wouldn’t know that because he’s just a Lannister pawn, and that fact wouldn’t stop Elia from lying to save Aegon’s life along with Rhaenys’s life.
In this passage, Varys was giving Tyrion a chance to prove that he knows this secret of Robert’s Rebellion, and Tyrion failed by reciting the official version of events, that Elia’s killer was Gregor Clegane. Remember, Varys lived with the Targaryen family in the castle and worked as the king’s Master of Whisperers. He knew everyone’s secrets and loved the Targaryen children. From Varys’s perspective, the killer of Elia and her children may not be Gregor or Amory or Tywin. In Varys’s mind, the person who he considers the real killer of Elia Martell may be Elia’s uncle, Lewyn Martell, who should not have had sex with or impregnated his niece in the first place.
If Rhaenys had been Rhaegar’s daughter rather than Lewyn’s daughter, Lewyn would not have needed to betray Rhaegar at the Trident to protect himself from punishment for the crimes of breaking his Kingsguard vows, cuckolding the Prince, incest, et all. And then Rhaegar would have won at the Trident, and then Elia and her children would never have been attacked by Gregor, Amory, and Tywin. From Varys’s perspective the causal link between Lewyn impregnating his niece Elia and the murders of her and her children would be plain as day.
Created May 28, 2025
Updated Jun 7, 2025 – Added book quotes
Updated Dec 17, 2025
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