just how Targaryen is Jon?

[Graydon Hicks]

since learning who Jon's parents are, i've been wondering just how much does jon resemble his Targaryen relatives? we know that he looks a lot like his uncle Eddard, though i think it might be more a case of Jon resembling his maternal grandfather Rickard a lot, whom Eddard also takes after. just a theory of course. but how much does Jon look like Rhaegar? like, does his facial features, body structuring, personality? damn GRRM for giving us so little on Rhaegar. i think that he might look enough like Rhaegar that if anyone who actually knew the Last Dragon might recognize the boy if they looked past the hair and eye color, the supposed bastardy. jaime might have seen his former prince, if he bothered to look beyond those traits.

[elder brother jonothor dar]

Was Jon even presented to the royal family? He probably blended into the crowd

[MostlyMoody]

Jon is described as the most Stark looking Stark; long face, dark hair, grey eyes.

Rhaegar is described as tall and handsome with silver hair. I think it's fair to assume he didn't look like a Stark. 

Either way, if Jon is Rhaegar's son he didn't take after his father in the looks department. It's funny, because between the little Aegon and Rhaenys, one looked like a Targaryen and the other like a Martell, so George hasn't established if Rhaegar's children would take after him like Bobby B's bastards for example. Sneaky bugger.

[Ygrain]

5 hours ago, elder brother jonothor dar said:

Was Jon even presented to the royal family? He probably blended into the crowd

He wasn't, and he was seated far away from the table. Cersei even makes a point that Ned was trying to "hide Jon".

Jon definitely looks like Ned's younger carbon copy in the face but his body type, slender and lithe, might be Rhaegar's, as well as his intellect - Cat was annoyed that he tended to best Robb in next to anything (and Robb was not an idiot), which pretty much resembles Barristan's claim that Rhaegar excelled in everything. "Deliberate, single-minded, dutiful" - wouldn't it fit for Jon, as well?

[GyantSpyder]

Jon seems a lot like Rhaegar - sullen, arrogant, a loner, good at things, puts off political problems, tends to think of himself as the only person who can accomplish dangerous tasks that affect everybody, and, of course, very attractive.

Jon doesn't seem to pay this much mind, and it's easy to justify or write off in various ways, but a lot of people tend to note how pretty Jon is, and one interpretation of that is he inherited some of his looks from his super-hot daddy. I don't think anybody remarks that Ned Stark is especially attractive.

[purple-eyes]

it looks like he pretty much took the appearance from his mother and took the personality from father. 

Rhaegar is counted as the most beautiful man of the world, Jon is not in this category at all. 

[Damein Blackfyre true king]

Just echoing what others are saying people have called Jon pretty. Men aren't usually described as pretty unless they have softer features.  Brandon is described as tall and handsome,Ned  was neither. However Jon is the only male of stark heritage that we see described as pretty. Even though Jon has typical stark phenotypic features with his brown hair, grey eyes (so dark they look black) and his long stark face, one can argue that Jon has softer features than others of his bloodline leading to the influence of his valyrian blood.  However like purple eyes stated Jon personality and loyal he commands is very akin to Rhaegar.  He is basically good at everything he does just like Rhaegar. 

[The Commentator]

Rhaegar is not the last dragon.  He was barely a dragon and the dragons may not even let him bond with them.  That's just a loosely used term.  Daenerys is the only real dragon among the children of Aerys and Rhaella.  Now, on to the question.  No, Jon does not look anything like a Valyrian.  For that reason and many others, I do not buy into the R+L=J idea.  While Gendry may resemble Robert, even Ned had to squint and look closely.  Whereas the look of the Starks, Jon's looks, is very obvious even at a casual glance.  

[Ygrain]

38 minutes ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

Rhaegar is not the last dragon.  He was barely a dragon and the dragons may not even let him bond with them.  

Well, sorry but I'll take the word of the characters who knew him over yours.

 

38 minutes ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

 Now, on to the question.  No, Jon does not look anything like a Valyrian.  For that reason and many others, I do not buy into the R+L=J idea.  While Gendry may resemble Robert, even Ned had to squint and look closely.  Whereas the look of the Starks, Jon's looks, is very obvious even at a casual glance.  

By this logic, little Rhaenys couldn't have been Targaryen because she didn't look like one, four out of Cat's kids are not Ned's and Arya is not Cat's, right?

Really, have you ever stopped to think that "L" in the RLJ equation stands for Lyanna Stark? As in, Ned's sister? And that siblings often look similar? We know that Jon looks a lot like Ned, and that Arya resembles both Ned and Jon, having the brown hair, grey eyes and long face. And guess what? Ned says that Arya looks like Lyanna - meaning, the four of them share the Stark look and Jon took after Lyanna, just like Rhaenys took after Elia, or Baelor Breakspear after his Dornish mother.

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, Damein Blackfyre true king said:

grey eyes (so dark they look black)

This might be a subtle hint at his Valyrian/Targaryen heritage.

There are a number of characters with eyes which in a certain light seem black:

'Egg', Aegon V Targaryen:

Quote

The Sworn Sword

"So far as most folk are concerned, Aegon Targaryen went back to Summerhall with his brother Daeron after the tourney at Ashford Meadow," Dunk reminded the boy. "Your father did not want it known that you were wandering the Seven Kingdoms with some hedge knight. So let's hear no more about your boot."

A look was all the answer that he got. Egg had big eyes, and somehow his shaven head made them look even larger. In the dimness of the lamplit cellar they looked black, but in better light their true color could be seen: deep and dark and purple. Valyrian eyes, thought Dunk. In Westeros, few but the blood of the dragon had eyes that color, or hair that shone like beaten gold and strands of silver woven all together.

Darkstar, a Dayne:

Quote

 his thick hair fell to his collar like a silver glacier, divided by a streak of midnight black. He has a cruel mouth, though, and a crueler tongue. His eyes seemed black as he sat outlined against the dying sun, sharpening his steel, but she had looked at them from a closer vantage and she knew that they were purple. Dark purple. Dark and angry. (AFFC -- The Queenmaker)

Young Griff, FAegon:

Quote

 Those eyes of his would melt them. Like his sire, Young Griff had blue eyes, but where the father's eyes were pale, the son's were dark. By lamplight they turned black, and in the light of dusk they seemed purple. (ADDW -- Tyrion IV)

And then there's Ned Dayne, whose eyes while not appearing black, nevertheless seem to change shades:

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

"You have a knife," Gendry suggested. "If your hair annoys you so much, shave your bloody head."

He doesn't like Ned. The squire seemed nice enough to Arya; maybe a little shy, but good-natured. She had always heard that Dornishmen were small and swarthy, with black hair and small black eyes, but Ned had big blue eyes, so dark that they looked almost purple. And his hair was a pale blond, more ash than honey.

And Tyrion -- a suspected 'secret Targ' -- with his mismatched eyes, one of which is black:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon I

Jon found it hard to look away from him. This is what a king should look like, he thought to himself as the man passed.

Then he saw the other one, waddling along half-hidden by his brother's side. Tyrion Lannister, the youngest of Lord Tywin's brood and by far the ugliest. All that the gods had given to Cersei and Jaime, they had denied Tyrion. He was a dwarf, half his brother's height, struggling to keep pace on stunted legs. His head was too large for his body, with a brute's squashed-in face beneath a swollen shelf of brow. One green eye and one black one peered out from under a lank fall of hair so blond it seemed white. Jon watched him with fascination.

The changeability of Valyrian eyes seems to be one of their chief characteristics, perhaps mirroring the different colors of dragonglass: black, purple, green and red:

Quote

"On Dragonstone, where I had my seat, there is much of this obsidian to be seen in the old tunnels beneath the mountain," the king told Sam. "Chunks of it, boulders, ledges. The great part of it was black, as I recall, but there was some green as well, some red, even purple. (ASOS -- Samwell V)

Dragonglass is connected to seeing, eyes and the 'third eye' here:

Quote

 A crow had once taken Mors for dead and pecked out his eye, so he wore a chunk of dragonglass in its stead. As Old Nan told the tale, he'd grabbed the crow in his fist and bitten its head off, so they named him Crowfood. (ACOK -- Bran II)

The subtle variation in color of dragonglass, which is a symbol for magical Valyrian eyes, is reflected by the different colors of the gemstones to which the eyes of Dany's ancestors are compared in her vision:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

"… want to wake the dragon …"

Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade

opal -- 'it can take on many colors. Precious opal ranges from clear through white, gray, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, magenta, rose, pink, slate, olive, brown, and black.'

amethyst -- purple

tourmaline -- 'Tourmaline has a variety of colors. Usually, iron-rich tourmalines are black to bluish-black to deep brown, while magnesium-rich varieties are brown to yellow, and lithium-rich tourmalines are almost any color:blue, green, red, yellow, pink, etc.'

jade -- 'Jade has six natural colors: green, lavender, red, yellow, white and black' 

The 'swords of pale flame' might be dragonglass:

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Samwell V

Alleras nodded at the glass candle.

Sam stared at the strange pale flame for a moment, then blinked and looked away. Outside the window it was growing dark.

 

[KingMance]

1 hour ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

Rhaegar is not the last dragon.  He was barely a dragon and the dragons may not even let him bond with them.  That's just a loosely used term.  Daenerys is the only real dragon among the children of Aerys and Rhaella.  Now, on to the question.  No, Jon does not look anything like a Valyrian.  For that reason and many others, I do not buy into the R+L=J idea.  While Gendry may resemble Robert, even Ned had to squint and look closely.  Whereas the look of the Starks, Jon's looks, is very obvious even at a casual glance.  

Of everything wrong with this, the Gendry wrongness irked me the most. Brienne almost shits herself the first time she meets him because he looks so much like Renly. Likewise, Catelyn and Ned remark on how similar Renly looks to Robert at that age. 

And it's time to buy in to R+L=J, whether you like it or not. 

[purple-eyes]

Well, maybe in the next book Jon will come back from death with a head of silver hair and purple eyes, plus he suddenly can play harp and sing sweet songs. And yes, he will marry some girl but then run off with horse-faced Arya at some point and create another bastard baby somewhere. 

then everybody will say he is rhaegar's son through and through. 

[Bowen Marsh]

You're assuming that Rhaegar is the bastard's father.  That may not be the case. 

[Bowen Marsh]

1 hour ago, purple-eyes said:

Well, maybe in the next book Jon will come back from death with a head of silver hair and purple eyes, plus he suddenly can play harp and sing sweet songs. And yes, he will marry some girl but then run off with horse-faced Arya at some point and create another bastard baby somewhere. 

then everybody will say he is rhaegar's son through and through. 

Horseface + Horseface.  That is an interesting pair, Jon + Arya.  Foreshadowed by Mr. Martin's letter to his publisher many years ago. 

[purple-eyes]

5 minutes ago, Bowen Marsh said:

You're assuming that Rhaegar is the bastard's father.  That may not be the case. 

I do wish his daddy is Aerys! 

Then he will be brother of Dany. 

by the way, I would prefer also that he is son of Ashara and Ned, much better than Rhaegar and Lyanna. 

[Bowen Marsh]

3 minutes ago, purple-eyes said:

I do wish his daddy is Aerys! 

Then he will be brother of Dany. 

by the way, I would prefer also that he is son of Ashara and Ned, much better than Rhaegar and Lyanna. 

Lady, I do wish Jon would stay dead.  Why do you think I executed him?  I don't want to have to repeat the job. 

It is actually possible for Jon to be a bastard of Aerys.  However, there is the problem with his looks again.  He has not a single physical feature of a Targaryen.  He has the crude, horsefaced look of the Stark all the way through.

[JNR]

26 minutes ago, Bowen Marsh said:

It is actually possible for Jon to be a bastard of Aerys.  However, there is the problem with his looks again.  He has not a single physical feature of a Targaryen.  He has the crude, horsefaced look of the Stark all the way through.

That's true... though you know what else has a long and narrow face, besides a horse?

A direwolf.

[The Fattest Leech]

15 minutes ago, JNR said:

That's true... though you know what else has a long and narrow face, besides a horse?

A direwolf.

Best answer yet 

[Bowen Marsh]

1 hour ago, JNR said:

That's true... though you know what else has a long and narrow face, besides a horse?

A direwolf.

True

[JNR]

1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Best answer yet 

Thanks.  I've wondered occasionally if GRRM is developing a pattern there, because:

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Borroq looked so much like his boar that all he lacked was tusks

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Jon had never seen a boar so huge or ugly. The man beside him was no beauty either; hulking, black-browed, he had a flat nose, heavy jowls dark with stubble, small black close-set eyes.

Not to mention:

Quote

"Mormont women are skinchangers. We turn into bears and find mates in the woods. Everyone knows."

Quote

Ser Jorah hung his sword belt on a bedpost, kicked off his boots, pulled his chain mail over his head, and stripped out of his wool and leather and sweat-stained undertunic to reveal a scarred, brawny torso covered with dark hair. If I could skin him, I could sell that pelt for a fur cloak, Tyrion thought

...among other conspicuous and striking parallels between skinchangers (or possible skinchangers) and their preferred animal.