Jon is not a Targaryen

[Targ loyalist]

Despite all the evidences about Rhaegar and Lyanna,I think Jon is not their son.Yesterday I reread all Jon's POVs so far,and I never,but NEVER found anything that would be a Targ characteristic.

1He doesnt look like a Targ at all,he is the typical Stark

2He never dreams dragons,nor fire,nor flying...

3He dreams weirwood trees,and Winterwell catacombs

4He is a skinchanger,he warged into the Ghost

5He doesnt have Targaryen personality,all Targs seem to be about:I am the blood of the dragons,I am the rightfull king

6He has wolf,the white wolf with red eyes like weirwood tree,if he was a Targ,he could have a black wolf with red eyes

7In Westeros,if a child has father of House X,and mother of House Y,it would be of House X,so if Jon is Rhaegar and Lyannas son,he would not be a Stark,he would be a Targaryen,and he would not have any rights for the wolf!

No,his father is either Eddard,Benjen or Brandon,and Lyanna is not his mother!

From this day I am not in R+L=J camp anymore!

[Daemrion]

Despite all the evidences about Rhaegar and Lyanna,I think Jon is not their son.Yesterday I reread all Jon's POVs so far,and I never,but NEVER found anything that would be a Targ characteristic.

1He doesnt look like a Targ at all,he is the typical Stark

2He never dreams dragons,nor fire,nor flying...

3He dreams weirwood trees,and Winterwell catacombs

4He is a skinchanger,he warged into the Ghost

5He doesnt have Targaryen personality,all Targs seem to be about:I am the blood of the dragons,I am the rightfull king

6He has wolf,the white wolf with red eyes like weirwood tree,if he was a Targ,he could have a black wolf with red eyes

7In Westeros,if a child has father of House X,and mother of House Y,it would be of House X,so if Jon is Rhaegar and Lyannas son,he would not be a Stark,he would be a Targaryen,and he would not have any rights for the wolf!

No,his father is either Eddard,Benjen or Brandon,and Lyanna is not his mother!

From this day I am not in R+L=J camp anymore!

Remember that just because he is a Stark it does not preclude him from being a Targaryen. Most of the things you point out are a result of Ned raising Jon as a Stark. If he had been raised as a Targ, no doubt he would show a lot of the Targ mannerisms.

[Callum]

Despite all the evidences about Rhaegar and Lyanna,I think Jon is not their son.Yesterday I reread all Jon's POVs so far,and I never,but NEVER found anything that would be a Targ characteristic.

1He doesnt look like a Targ at all,he is the typical Stark

2He never dreams dragons,nor fire,nor flying...

3He dreams weirwood trees,and Winterwell catacombs

4He is a skinchanger,he warged into the Ghost

5He doesnt have Targaryen personality,all Targs seem to be about:I am the blood of the dragons,I am the rightfull king

6He has wolf,the white wolf with red eyes like weirwood tree,if he was a Targ,he could have a black wolf with red eyes

7In Westeros,if a child has father of House X,and mother of House Y,it would be of House X,so if Jon is Rhaegar and Lyannas son,he would not be a Stark,he would be a Targaryen,and he would not have any rights for the wolf!

No,his father is either Eddard,Benjen or Brandon,and Lyanna is not his mother!

From this day I am not in R+L=J camp anymore!

1) If Lyanna is his mother, he has Stark blood in him and can look like a Stark. Just like Robert has many bastards and all look like Baratheons, doesn't mean that they have Baratheon parents (incest) or all the mothers were from the same family...

2) This is kind of the same as above, he has Stark blood in him, not primarily Targaryen, so he can't be Targaryen in every aspect.

3) This is the same as number 2...

4) Same as number 2... (and would like to point out that it isn't only Stark's that are wargs, so can't rule out anything...)

5) This could be due to his upbringing, or the fact that if he is part Targaryen, he has no idea. Having thoughts like 'I am the blood of the dragons,I am the rightfull king' isn't due to genetics of any sory, Martinesc or otherwise...

6) If he was a lannister, he could have a golden wolf with crimson eyes, or a crimson wolf with gold eyes, what's your point?

7) Jon isn't a Stark, he is a Snow. He may have been raised in the Stark household, but he still has no right to either house's name...

[Taemlyn Blackfyre]

Jon's not a Targaryen or a Stark or Snow.

He's a Blackfyre, with a current (if dead) King's decree of legitimization.

[commando penguin]

5He doesnt have Targaryen personality,all Targs seem to be about:I am the blood of the dragons,I am the rightfull king

im pretty sure Dany wouldnt have been like that if it wasnt for Viserys. id say about 96.7% sure

[Darkostar]

Sorry, but he's a Targy, though most likely he'll keep the name Snow.

[Ser Hot Pie]

I have never seen anyone in the "Jon is really Ned's son" camp adequately offer another interpretation of Lyanna's death scene, where she lay in her "bed of blood", a term used elsewhere in the novels as a description of childbirth, and also the promise that she made Ned swear to her. These are memories that haunt Ned throughout AGOT, and I think that the prominence that Martin gives them makes them highly significant. Then the story of Howland Reed at the tourney at Harrenhall, as related by Meera, brings the Rhaegar + Lyanna storyline back into major focus. If these flashbacks, in addition to the scene at the Tower of Joy, have an alternate meaning, I have yet to come across a compelling theory as to what that meaning is. Beyond the crackpot variety, I mean.

[BastardSword]

Remember, in addition to Parris saying R + L = J was too obvious for GRRM, GRRM himself said Jon's parentage is COMPLICATED.

Here's my theory, suitably complicated. Compelling? You decide:

1. I don't believe Rhaegar 'stole' Lyanna at all. I believe she took off on her own for Dorne; either to meet Rhaegar, or to rendezvous with her lover--who was not Rhaegar, but Ser Arthur Dayne. Possibly no one knew Lyanna's real intent, but it's also possible that Benjen Stark did, that he covered for Lyanna by not telling her father and Brandon she went voluntarily. I think this is why after the war Ben went in the NW; he had a heavy burden of guilt he felt he needed to expiate, to Westeros in general and to his family (which at that point was Ned.) One other person knew the truth: Ashara Dayne, Arthur's sister.

2. Rhaegar, not realizing what a sh!tstorm Lyanna's leaving would cause, had his own thang going: getting his heir and the PwP out of KL which, even if he didn't know how bad things were going to get, was too dicey a place for so important a child. Who did he choose to care for Aegon? Ashara, who was down in Dorne which was Elia's homeland and far from the fighting. Aegon couldn't be kept at Starfall, too many eyes and ears. So he was sent to the Tower of Joy in the Dorne desert, under the care of Lyanna Stark, 3 KG including Arthur Dayne, and, when she could get away, Ashara Dayne.

3. Rhaegar didn't father Lyanna's baby. Arthur Dayne did. Once she was pregnant she couldn't very well show herself anywhere. People believed she was a prisoner, raped by Rhaegar (though isn't it odd that if anyone TRULY believed that, it wouldn't have occurred to them she might have had a child and that it could be the baby Ned brought home with him? This has always been a plot hole for me, that Robert, hating Rhaegar and suspicious as hell, would have taken Jon at face value. Anyway.) But she was there voluntarily and her child was Dayne's.

4. The only way Ned could have known where she was was if she sent word to him, and told him to come only with a small group he trusted. Which he did, only to bump into the KG. He DID NOT expect to--he didn't know where the hell they were, and wouldn't have shown up with such a small and relatively low-fire-power crew to take on 3 if he had.

5. Furthermore, again as noted above, a R + L baby born illegitimately EITHER of rape or a love affair WAS NOT THE LEGAL HEIR. Viserys was. If Rhaegar's bastard was Rhaegar's heir, then Jon was Robb's, and as we all know that was not the case unless the KING had made Jon legitimate.

The KINGSGuard was there to guard THE RIGHTFUL KING:

Aegon. Ned's duty as Robert's man was to take Aegon back to KL as a prisoner.

The KG could not let that happen. THEY SWORE A VOW.

And so there was a fight.

6. I also don't believe Ned killed Dayne. I'm not even sure Ser Arthur is dead--Reed may have hit him with a dart and knocked him out, or netted him (see other threads on that point), till Lyanna could put Ned in the picture and get his promise to cooperate regarding Aegon AND to take care of her child by Arthur.

7. The upshot is, either Ashara alone, or Ashara and Arthur, (who looked enough like him to be related due to the Dayne/Targ similarities--silver hair, purple eyes...the only plot justification for which that I can figure out is to enable this plot twist) were allowed by Ned to take Aegon somewhere. Overseas, Greywater Watch--I don't know. And Ned took Lyanna's child by Arthur back to Winterfell as his own bastard, and to protect Arthur's spotless reputation by never revealing Jon's true father.

So:

*Aegon is alive and well and lurking in the wings to enter the story. (By the way, the reference to "Mummer's Dragon" doesn't necessarily mean a fake dragon, it could mean a real dragon controlled by a mummer and the mummer could be Varys, who may have been the only one in KL who knew Aegon was switched. His interest in Dany is because she's a fall back if anything happens to Aegon (as it did to Viserys) before he's ready to rule.

*Jon is the son of Arthur Dayne and Lyanna Stark and will eventually wield Dawn as Sword of The Morning II: The Motion Picture. He will be legitimized. And he will kick Darkstar in the arse, big time.

[Ser Hot Pie]

Arthur + Lyanna? That's a whole lotta crack in your pot. Where in the text is that theory given legs?

Arthur swore his Kingsguard vows back when they meant something. He would not have fathered children.

[Shewoman]

Not all Targs are crazy. Some of them really really are, but read Hedge Knight--one crazy Targ there and a couple of not-so-nice ones, but one who's everything a king should be.

[BastardSword]

"Arthur swore his Kingsguard vows back when they meant something. He would not have fathered children."

One would think by now you would realize that in GRRM's universe there is no such thing as a hard and fast rule, or an all good character .

Ser Arthur's reputation is exactly why Lyanna wouldn't have wanted it sullied. But if you've read AFFC you know that historically the KG had members, even illustrious ones, who broke their vows, whether of loyalty or chastity.

Why should Ser Arthur Dayne be the one stereotype who wandered in from a different type of fantasy novel, the legendary swordsman of utter purity? Why should he be any less complex a character, with shadings of gray, than others?

Why should the truth of Jon's parentage ultimately make people go "Oh yeah I figured that out 3 books ago" instead of spinning their heads around?

The point is, is there anything besides your touching belief in Art's incorruptibility in the text that makes it impossible that Art, like another KG to whom we've recently been introduced, might have fallen off his pedestal?

If you want to believe Rhaegar carried Lyanna Stark, the willful wolf girl whose impulsiveness made Ned so sad and so worried for Arya who was like her, off and raped her till she whelped, I don't have a problem with that. I believed in the R + L = J theory for a couple of years. But after AFFC, I started poking holes in it, and when I came on the board I saw other people who were beginning to too. So I'm throwing my theory out there as an alternative.

I admit you're not going to find a lot of explicit textual evidence but I don't think you'll find anything other than the expectation of Ser Arthur's incorruptibility that makes it impossible. Which is the perfect set up for a shocker because in retrospect it was far from obvious yet still in the realm of possibility.

Re-read Ned's dream where just as he and the KG start to dust up Lyanna calls out to him. I have a vision of a deathly ill woman dragging herself to a tower window and seeing her beloved brother and her baby daddy in a dust up from which only one, or maybe neither, will walk away, and screaming "EDDARD!"

At which point of course Ned wakes up .

[PS truthfully I'd have no problems with it if Jon IS a Targ. Whether his father's a Dayne or a Targ, there's his Fire to go with his Ice (Dawn came from a shooting star, Dorne's sigil = SUN which is pretty fiery, as are their peppers ) if you believe the phrase refers to Jon as well as to the entire theme of the book on many levels.]

EDIT TO ADD:

I admit I go about this more as a writer myself, thinking how I would deal with clues and foreshadowings of a plot twist like this, than a lawyer preparing a case for why it's true, but I think there is a lot of 'circumstantial evidence'?

More points to chew on:

Remember, Ashara was Elia's close friend and lady in waiting, yet she left her in KL to return to Dorne. WHY?

WHY was Ashara's body conveniently never recovered?

WHERE is Dawn? If it's nothing but a long lost sword why is it mentioned so often and so prominently?

[Targ loyalist]

I think that a writer like a GRRM would NEVER gave us the evidences enough to figure out some mystery in 4 books,no.There are not enough evidences for anything!I think we will have to wait more to see what really hapenned at Harenhall and TOJ...

BTW,BastardSword,where did GRRM stated that Jon's parentage is far more complicated?I really believe he spoke the truth...

I can imagine when he finishes his last book what impresions will be...something that NOBODY didnt expected...and that is the most beautiful in this Song of Ice and Fire...

[Anath]

A Targaryen or not, Jon is not Rhaegar's heir. Rhaegar could not marry Lyanna just because he already had a wife. Yes, Aegon the Conqueror had two wives but Egg's sister wanted to marry him INSTEAD of their other sister (The Sworn Sword). Obviously, he couldn't marry them both at the same time. So, we see the Targaryen poligamy is ended. Rhaegar could not legally marry Lyanna and Jon is not his legitimate son. He can't be a heir of the Iron Throne.

[Ser Hot Pie]

The point is, is there anything besides your touching belief in Art's incorruptibility in the text that makes it impossible that Art, like another KG to whom we've recently been introduced, might have fallen off his pedestal?

Not impossible, just very unlikely.

I just find it curious logic to defend a theory by saying that because one can't prove that it is impossible, it is therefore more likely to be true than a theory that has a lot of textual evidence to support it.

As for R+L=J being so transparent and obvious to everyone, I kind of doubt that most casual, or even first time readers, come to that impression. I feel that it's something that occurs to most people after close inspection on multiple reads (or close inspection on the first read if one is that astute). I personally wouldn't feel "cheated" if it turns out to be the case, just because I started to put 2+2 together on my second trip through the series.

I'm not trying to make the case that R+L=J is an absolute certainty. It's not. It's simply the best explanation offered by the clues in the text. Some people, your self included, feel that this is why it must be a misdirection. I suppose that is a valid suspicion. But it's a pretty big leap to say that therefore the correct answer must be something that is NOT hinted at in the novels. All I'm looking for are alternate theories that are supported in some way, other than just some notion off the top of someone's head.

[BastardSword]

I think the "complicated" line is from So Spake Martin.

To be honest, R + L = J makes sense in terms of the book, and would make a great plot twist, and in the days before internet message boards like this one I think would never have become as well known a theory as it is. Back in the mid-1990s when Martin was probably conceptualizing the book he couldn't have known that one day, fans not only from all over the US but all over the WORLD could come together and pick the book apart word by word and cross pollinate each other's ideas.

What seemed like a "Wow they'll NEVER figure this one out!" back then is now "obvious".

So the question is, does Martin just go with it, or does he try to pull some other, more 'complicated' theory out of the hat, which means he has to go with the stuff he's already written and make the 'new' more surprising revelation accord with past clues, or at least not contradict them?

As the King of Siam said, "Is...a puzzlement!"

And part of why people get hooked on this series, right?

[PS of course if it turns out my theory is right, I expect all the people who told me I pulled it out of my arse to buy me a beer ]

[cybroleach]

Er, no. Blackfyre is not a traditional Targaryen name for bastards at all, as many people seem to think. It is the family name adopted by Daemon, a bastard son of Aegon the Unworthy, and one of his aunts(or cousin, something like that anyway), taken after Aegon legitimized him and all of his other bastards on his deathbed.

See for example Brynden Rivers, known as Lord Bloodraven, or Aegor Rivers, known as Bittersteel.

This is not to say that Jon couldn't call himself Blackfyre, but I can't imagine why he would.

I now agree completely

Edit beacuse I now know i was really mis-informed about this topic

[Artanaro]

WoooooooHooooooooo. Testifty brother, Targ Loyalist. TESTIFY I say. Don't let the bastards get you down (in reference to no one in particular). Anyways, good luck, but be prepared to reap the whirlwind.

Woohhoooooooooo

Artanaro

[NYC Falcon]

Despite all the evidences about Rhaegar and Lyanna,I think Jon is not their son.Yesterday I reread all Jon's POVs so far,and I never,but NEVER found anything that would be a Targ characteristic.

1He doesnt look like a Targ at all,he is the typical Stark

2He never dreams dragons,nor fire,nor flying...

3He dreams weirwood trees,and Winterwell catacombs

4He is a skinchanger,he warged into the Ghost

5He doesnt have Targaryen personality,all Targs seem to be about:I am the blood of the dragons,I am the rightfull king

6He has wolf,the white wolf with red eyes like weirwood tree,if he was a Targ,he could have a black wolf with red eyes

7In Westeros,if a child has father of House X,and mother of House Y,it would be of House X,so if Jon is Rhaegar and Lyannas son,he would not be a Stark,he would be a Targaryen,and he would not have any rights for the wolf!

No,his father is either Eddard,Benjen or Brandon,and Lyanna is not his mother!

From this day I am not in R+L=J camp anymore!

You forgot he never once pinches Arya's or Sansa's nipples.

[Lord Stark]

I didn't put R+L=J until I came to this board. I'm sure there are many more that didn't either. Martin has said he won't change the story just because some fans think they know what is going to happen, so well because some people have read the books many times and it seems like they know, to many others who have not read the books many times they may have no idea about the R+L=J theory.

I find it hard to believe that Ser Arthur would break his vows. Isn't he said to be one of the only true knight? I know most people in the books are grey but I do believe there are some that are just good, and just bad. Also where does the second baby come from? There is nothing hinting at a second child at the ToJ and I find it hard to believe that Lyanna would stay at the ToJ well her family gets killed and fights and war to save her. Just doesn't make sense to me.

Also even if Martin said that Jons parents are "complicated", I find R+L=J a bit "complicated", and he also could have meant that he wouldn't give any real hints and that there would be a hundred different ideas floating around until he finally wants to give us the truth.

We know Jon has Stark in him, but who is to say that Stark genes aren't stronger then Targ? They are First Men, as well as Wargs, so I would think their genes would be pretty strong. Whatever Martin gives us will make sense in the end, and I bet he has a good laugh at all the stuff people can come up with

[BastardSword]

Why SHOULD Arthur Dayne (who by the way when I first started reading ASOIAF kept thinking of as Arthur DENT...different series, waaaayyy different ) be the one 100% pure character in the book?

And doesn't anybody think it's odd that we get so much of the whole Ashara 'n' Arthur saga in such an illogical way? We learn about Ashara and Ned via a Cat POV (about palace gossip, mind you, not even stuff she knows first hand) in book I and a walk on not even named in Book III in Meera's story (she wasn't there either, and doesn't say where she got the story), and get the Ned-killed-Artie story again from palace gossip via Cat and from a fever dream of Ned's.

The big dramatic scenes that any writer worth his salt would have wrung every bit of pathos from by having Ned remember or confess them would have been killing this noble paragon knight who by the way kicked ass with a famous sword, then having to tell the dude's sister WHO IS ALSO the love of his life about it and not long afterward she does a swan dive into the ocean?

Where are these scenes? They are what in dramatic writing are called 'obligatory scenes*' because not showing them cheats the audience. You sure ain't gonna get them from Ned because...(cue the music) "yanno Neddy's dead."

You're not going to solve this mystery by thinking like readers, my friends. The READERS are the rubes, the ones meant to be fooled by the shell games and card tricks of the author.

Sure, you could say we'll see the Ned/KG fight later from Howland. But that's hearsay, as we say in law. We don't hear it from Ned because it didn't happen like we're led to believe. And from whom will we hear the story of Ned's horrible confession to the soon to be shark food Ashara? Nobody, if they're both dead. Even if Howland saw SOME of this scene you can't tell me Ned was never alone with her and it didn't tear his heart out. He doesn't even AVOID thinking of it. His entire focus about the ToJ is his promise to Lyanna, not icing (sorry about the pun) Dayne and not devastating then losing his lover.

On the other hand if Ashara's alive, as I believe she is, we just might hear it from her. And if Arthur's alive, and Jon's daddy as I believe, we're going to see him tell it to his son, and that scene is going to rock beyond belief, and more than compensate us for waiting for it.

====

* From a discussion of playwriting, but also applicable to novel writing:

"Deciding what to show fully, what to show partially, what to narrate, what to suppress, where to begin, and where to end constitutes your most difficult problem as a playwright. You may find that you have so arranged things as to require an obligatory scene, without which your audience will feel disappointed or cheated."