10 Game of Thrones dads who give Father’s Day a bad name

Rhaegar Targaryen

When it comes to the Targaryens, bad parenting may run in the family. Rhaegar Targaryen may not have been violently unstable like his father Aerys, but he still did his wife and children a rotten turn.

When Robert’s Rebellion broke out, Rhaegar was married to Elia Martell. He had two children with her: Rhaenys and Aegon. Elia had a delicate constitution, and was laid up for a while after the birth of her kids. At some point, Rhaegar’s eye wandered to Lyanna Stark, with whom he shared a passionate affair. At a tournament at Harrenhal, Rhaegar even rode past his wife and presented Lyanna with his token, naming her the Queen of Love and Beauty. And the rest is history. Bloody, horrible, infanticidal history.

We don’t know if Rhaegar could have helped falling in love with Lyanna Stark, but at the very least, he could have found a better time to address his feelings; for gods’ sake, man, everyone’s watching. Whatever his intentions, Rhaegar’s actions at the Tourney at Harrenhal brought war to Westeros and set off a chain of events that led directly to the brutal deaths of Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon, the latter of whom was just a baby. (If you’re going with the book’s version of events, Aegon survived and grew up in exile in Essos, but still, bad on Rhaegar for unwittingly forcing him there.)

Rhaegar also had a son by Lyanna, the boy who grew up to be Jon Snow. But being dead, he wasn’t much of a dad.

Rhaegar is an interesting case, because he has a lot of good qualities. By many accounts, he was just, kind and peaceful. But when he messed up, he messed up badly.