Daeron II got a lot of scorn for being all scholarly and cultured. And this apparently made some lords go over to his half brother Daemon who by contrast was a great athlete and warrior. Yet we know Rhaegar was also very scholarly and cultured yet he seems to earns praise for it by his contemporaries. Why was Rhaegar who wasn’t didn’t seem so manly is better regarded than a more boisterous warrior like Robert while Daeron wasn’t when compared to his arch enemy?

Rhaegar wasn’t particularly praised for being scholarly:

“As a young boy, the Prince of Dragonstone was bookish to a fault. He was reading so early that men said Queen Rhaella must have swallowed some books and a candle whilst he was in her womb. Rhaegar took no interest in the play of other children. The maesters were awed by his wits, but his father’s knights would jest sourly that Baelor the Blessed had been born again.”

Rhaegar was praised because he made a turnaround from that and all of the sudden became an amazing tourney knight out of nowhere.