HBO Just Spoiled That Jon Snow Parentage Theory

Spoiler alert: do not read on if you have not seen Game of Thrones’ season six finale. We don’t want you getting like this:

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After the final episode of Game of Thrones season six, it was all but confirmed that, as fans put it, R+L=J. Let me put that theory in normal-person terms: Rhaegar Targaryen (Daenerys Targaryen’s brother) and Lyanna Stark (Ned Stark’s sister) had a secret baby together, and that baby was Jon Snow – the boy who has been living under the impression that he was Ned Stark’s bastard son for his whole life.

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In the final episode of the season, we found out that this theory was at least partially correct: Lyanna Stark was indeed Jon’s mother, but there was no mention of Rhaegar, a character who hasn’t yet appeared in the show’s flashbacks and who most of the show-only audience will have no idea about. Perhaps that’s why the creators thought it best to introduce Rhaegar later on in the story – but HBO has decided differently, offering something to fans of the books that will confirm the most laudable theory they’ve ever supported. That something is this Gordian Knot of a family tree. Check it out below, and click on it to make it bigger:

Another thing you’ll notice is the ‘confirmed’ death of Rhaenys and Aegon Targaryen at the hand of The Mountain – these guys would have been Jon Snow’s brother and sister, had they lived to tell the tale. Readers of George R.R. Martin’s books will be aware that there is a character calling himself Aegon that may have survived The Mountain’s onslaught after being swapped by Varys for a similar-looking baby; he was later sent to Essos. Many book-readers believe that this Aegon is a false pretender, someone who was simply brought up as Aegon Targaryen – but either way, it looks at this point as though this character, Aegon or not, may have been cut from the show completely.

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