Crazy Fan Theories, Part 1: Game of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 4: "Book of the Stranger"

So remember when I wrote this post, about how I was really not into Game of Thrones Season 1?  I was waltzing along, bored out of my skull at the endless talking and limp wangs of the show, while you seasoned veterans were likely going, "Oh, Equinox, you sad, sad fool."

Well, to everyone's relief, that's changed since then.

I did indeed make it past episode 6 of GoT Season 1, and in fact I made it through most of Seasons 1, 2, 3, & 4 within only a month or so of each other.  I love this show.  I in fact worship this show like Robert Baratheon worshipped the ground Lyanna Stark walked on.

Too soon?

(This is about the time I point out

since I am 100% up to date on GoT... ) 

In the past few weeks, we’ve seen Bran’s storyline finally get interesting.  I mean seriously – episodes on end of him being “OMG I can warg into Hodor!” and he’s not even doing it to get laid? Boring. 

At the end of season 4, when he finally reached the cave with the 3-eyed raven, some serious shit went down: the battle with the wights, Jojen’s death, and the super-creepy girl who is one of the Children, the original inhabitants of Westeros.  All of a sudden, Bran’s story was fascinating. 

Then he vanished for the entirety of Season 5.  Wtf, guys??

But now that he’s back, his storyline is kind of my favorite.  I mean, watching Tyrion manipulate basically everyone into doing whatever he wants is always entertaining, and the scene where he makes awkward small talk with Grey Worm and Missandei is one of the most painfully brilliant conversations out there.  And of course there’s Jon Snow’s resurrection, which Kit Harington himself ruined for me –

But I can forgive him since it means Jon Snow LIVES.

So other than them, watching Bran scramble around in the past is my favorite.  I’ve always liked flashbacks for their power to show what’s only ever been hinted at, and boy, did that play out in Season 6, Episode 4: Book of the Stranger.     

Bran heads back years, to the moment when Ned Stark defeats Sir Arthur Dayne to rescue his sister, Lyanna, from the tower where Prince Rhaegar has been keeping her prisoner.  The scene ends before Ned, who looks like he’s about 20-25, enters the tower, thus preventing Bran from seeing what he found inside.  The 3-eyed raven says that “that’s enough” for now, but it’s clear that Bran has some suspicions about what Ned found. 

And I do too. 

Rhaegar Targaryen is the son of the Mad King.  In kidnapping Lyanna Stark, we can only assume that he likely raped and tortured her before her death.  We have no idea how she died – though perhaps Bran will find out eventually – only that she’s dead, and her kidnapping inspired Robert Baratheon’s War of the Usurper, the event that ultimately set off everything else currently happening in Westeros.

Here’s the thing: We know Lyanna Stark died in her brother Ned’s arms. What if this tower is where that happened? And what if, assuming Rhaegar did indeed rape her, she was pregnant?  Let’s go further and assume that her baby survived, even if she did not – she could have died in childbirth, or Ned could have found her near death and saved her baby, we don’t know. 

Right now, Daenerys Targaryen is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne as the only surviving child of Aerys II, the Mad King.  But according to most inheritance laws, that right passes through firstborn blood rights; if Prince Rhaegar was the heir, his eldest child would be the next heir, and so on through his bloodline.  His younger siblings are only in line for the throne if his children die.  Now, all Rhaegar’s children by his wife Elia Martell were slaughtered by Sir Gregor Clegane, the Mountain, during the Sack of King’s Landing by the Lannister army at the end of Robert’s Rebellion.   Thus, Rhaeger’s line ended, and his younger siblings by rights inherit the throne, even if Baratheon did usurp it somewhat successfully. 

BUT: if Lyanna Stark had a baby, it would likely be the child of Rhaegar Targaryen, meaning that child would replace Daenerys as the Targaryen heir. 

Jon Snow, former Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and assumed bastard of Ned Stark, is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne.

I realize this is not exactly a new theory.  However, a lot of what I’ve read is circumstantial: Jon Snow walking into the room as Aemon Targaryen says something about his family being alone in the world, the mirroring of public executions and rises to power between Snow and Dany, Melisandre only trying to seduce men who have a claim to the throne.  Those are all lovely little breadcrumbs dropped throughout the show, but they are also easily explained away as coincidence. 

One clue is not, and that’s where I want to start: the comment Stannis Baratheon makes about Ned Stark not being the kind of guy to cheat on his wife.

Ned Stark, for all intents and purposes, has never been anything but loyal to his wife Catelyn, other than one tiny indiscretion that produced his bastard son Jon Snow.  He brought this baby home from the war and asked his wife to raise him without any comment about his mother.  Catelyn has always been conflicted about Jon Snow – she trusts her husband, but Jon is also only slightly younger that Robb Stark, meaning Ned would have had to cheat on her basically at the same time as they conceived his firstborn son.  The timelines are a little too close to make sense that he conceived a child with someone else while away at war. 

Then, of course, there’s the conversation by the river.  First, Robert Baratheon asks Ned who Snow’s mother actually is, and Ned, in no position to refuse, tells him her name was Wylla.  If you’ve read the books, you probably know that Wylla is of rather undetermined status: she was a maid and a wet nurse for House Dayne, but we don’t know if she’s still alive nor is there any evidence that she and Ned actually knew each other. 

[Another possibility is Ashara Dayne, who killed herself over the death of her brother at Ned’s hands.  I don’t put much stock in this theory, even though Catelyn Stark was commanded never to mention her name by Ned himself at one point. Personally, I think this is all Ned just trying to keep Jon’s existence on the downlow, because if the Great Houses of Westeros figured out his true parentage, he is in grave danger.] 

Don’t forget when Ned Stark pulls Jon Snow aside to talk about his mother. That conversation never happens – Ned starts it, but they are interrupted, and then separated, and then Ned is beheaded by Joffrey Baratheon for treason before they are ever reunited.  The secret of Jon Snow’s mother dies with him, presumably. 

This is already super suspicious, and we aren’t even out of Season 1 (and book 1). 

#varysuspicious

Then I’m going to skip ahead – my knowledge of Season 2-4 is a little shaky since I haven’t seen them in over a year, and I read the books in 2011.  But considering that all the really important stuff to support my theory shows up in Seasons 5 & 6, I’m okay with it.  Maybe I’ll re-watch them and expand this until it’s long and obnoxious and completely irrefutable. 

So at the end of Season 5, Jon Snow is murdered. 

This caused basically everyone who’ve been rooting for him to throw up their hands in disgust and claim that they are never watching Game of Thrones again. 

They are all lying. 

Season 6 starts with Snow’s body, cold and bloody, being dragged inside Castle Black by his supporters.  Davos and Melisandre conspire to attempt to bring him back to life, though Melisandre needs some serious convincing.  Her entire life, her entire religion, have been based on what she sees in the flames, and with Stannis’ and Jon Snow’s deaths, everything she thought was true has been lost. 

After all, she saw Jon Snow alive and fighting at the coming Battle of Winterfell, and how can that be possible if he’s dead? 

But with some convincing, she performs a rite to bring Jon Snow back (including cutting his hair so it’s the right length for Kit Harington, who cut his hair immediately after Snow was stabbed to further the illusion that he was, in fact, dead.  Since everyone knows Harington’s hair is under contract (check out this video if you don't believe me) with HBO, everyone lost their shit – if his hair was gone, then so was Jon Snow.  Clever.) 

Anyway, it works – Episode 2 ends with Jon Snow’s dramatic revival, and Episode 3 opens with him waking up to finger his own stab wounds and wonder what the fuck happened, exactly.  Melisandre asks him what he saw, reacting poorly when Jon tells her that “it was only darkness” before Davos ushers her out. 

The fact that Jon Snow lives is not, in and of itself, proof that he is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen.  

But it is promising. 

Who knows? Maybe he is just as surprised as we are. 

Think further: The books constantly reference just how much Jon Snow looks like Ned, which would seem to be evidence in favor of Ned’s adultery as opposed to a child of a Targaryen.  Their House is known for their long silvery hair, achieved by intermarrying their siblings and something Jon obviously lacks.  But think carefully: That doesn’t mean Ned’s his father.  We already watched Ned follow dark hair as a dominant gene in Season 1 in order to determine Joffrey’s true parentage, so we can extrapolate that if Rhaegar Targaryen fathered a child on someone with dark hair, her genes would win out.

And Lyanna is a Stark, after all.  All the Starks have dark hair except Sansa, who clearly resembles her mother Catelyn.  Otherwise, it’s nothing but dark hair as far as the eye can see. She and Ned are both children of Rickard Stark; perhaps Jon looks like his grandfather and no one quite realizes it. 

Except Ned, of course. 

Ned’s constant visits to his sister’s grave (as evidenced by Sansa’s memories throughout the show) also support that Jon Snow is his nephew, as he would want to honor Lyanna’s memory by raising her son well.  And as tension in Westeros rose, he would also want a reminder of who he was protecting, and why, in keeping Jon’s parentage a secret.  He does mention to Jon that they may not share a name, but they share blood.  He’s not lying; he’s just not telling the whole truth either. 

That’s a massive pile of Stark-related evidence that Jon Snow is in fact the child of Lyanna and Rhaegar Targaryen, and by extension the heir to the throne. 

What about everything else?

The clues here lie in the words of House Targaryen: “Fire and Blood.” 

Daenerys Targaryen has built her reputation on being The Unburnt, including her dramatic emergence from the Temple of the Dosh Kahleen at the end of Episode 4.  This suggests, at least on some level, that she’s immune to fire.  If you can’t buy into that, then hopefully we can at least concede that she has a unique relationship with fire.

 

There’s no evidence that Dany follows the Lord of Light, but I have no doubt she’d approve of his fire-based message.  She repeatedly uses fire to serve her own purposes: as a way to cleanse herself, as seen in her rebirth as the mother of dragons, or to dispose of her enemies, as seen in her destruction of the misogynistic leaders of the Dothraki, allowing her to (presumably) seize power next episode.

Back in Westeros, Melisandre, a Red Priestess, receives her visions (as well as her power to defy age) from the flames.  She’s also pulled prominent leaders into the Lord of Light’s influence, most obviously Stannis Baratheon and his wife.  Baratheon adopted the flames into his house sigil, his wife so devout she watched gleefully as her brother, a sinner, was immolated for his adherence to the old faith.  Flame is cleansing, used to preserve the faithful and destroy everyone else.  In addition, flame is how the Lord of Light accepts sacrifice in return for his favor, most notably Shireen Baratheon in Season 5. 

The Lord of Light has power in Westeros, the power of fire and the power of blood. 

And who did the fire god choose to bring back to life?

Jon Snow. 

Blood should have killed him, and fire brought him back. 

The only remaining piece is for him to dramatically survive a fire that should have killed him (which I predict to be how his heritage is finally revealed). 

All hail Jon Snow, the First of his Name, Former Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and the Prince that was Promised, the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, and future King of the Seven Kingdoms.