just how Targaryen is Jon?

[Ygrain]

There is a difference between meeting Rhaegar and knowing him so well that you can remember the exact shape of his chin or eyes or whatever. Plus, people see what they want to see - if they think Jon is Ned Stark's bastard, they aren't going to think who else the shape of his chin reminds of. Maester Aemon, with his intelligence and a physician's eye, might have been able to, but, well... 

[Lord Wraith]

On 5/20/2017 at 1:56 AM, sweetsunray said:

Why'd you think GRRM made Maester Aemon a blind man?

Good point.

On 5/20/2017 at 2:46 AM, purple-eyes said:

To be fair, there is a decent chance that Aemon has never met Rhaegar in person. Aemon was born in 198 and Rhaegar was born in 259. 

Aemon went to the wall in 233 and it seems like he never left there, not even when RR happened.  when Rhaegar became an adult, Aemon is already like 80 years old. We never heard that Rhaegar visited the wall in person (if he did, we should have heard about it). 

True but they certainly sent letters to each other.

23 hours ago, LordManderlyAsDragonRider said:

I was just wondering about the statements that no one who meets Jon has seen Rheagar so they cannot compare. What about Alliser Thorne? He is from the Crownland, and fought on Rheagar's side. I would think he has seen Rheagar. 

When Lord Mormont sends Alliser to Kings Landing with the rotting hand, doesn't he say something about Alliser being the best one to send because he is used to court? I may misremember that part. 

But since Alliser was not pardoned, but had the chose of death or the Wall, I imagine he was somewhat high ranking in the Targaryan army, I don't think every knight from a minor lord would be executed or send to the Wall.

 

Just remembered: Harrehal. Rheagar won the turney, he got to hand out the crown of beauty, he song and played his harp at the feast. Anyone there should have gotten a good look at him, and EVERYONE was at Harrenhal. There must have other Northren Lords there.

I think Alliser probably couldn't get past him being the son of Ned Stark. The son of the man who was part of the coalition to send him to the Wall. Then Jon just keeps pissing him off.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

About 50%, he doesn't look like one but he has shown some attitudes, much like Breakspear.

[BRANDON GREYSTARK]

On Invalid Date at 5:25 AM, Graydon Hicks said:

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.

None .He looks like EDDARD STARK and he was raised a Stark and his loyalty is to the house of Stark .

[Graydon Hicks]

 doesnt mean he's neds natural son. i have a maternal female cousin, who looks a great deal like pictures of my mother in her youth. it seems to me that valyrian traits are genetic recessive, so almost everytime a targaryen married and had children outside the main line, the children look like the non-targaryen  parent in coloring. the successive appearance of the traits in the mainline would be because of the inbreeding constantly reinforcing the recessive genes. think back to eighth grade science class, with those first classes in dna.

[Lykos]

He's probably more Blackwood than Targaryen in any case, but I don't see why that is important anyway. Remember power lies where people believe it lies.

[Graydon Hicks]

better to say he is more blood of the first men than he is blood of old valyria.

[Wolfgirly]

Jon might be the first Targaryen who's ever lived in the far north (apart from the old man Targ at the nights watch), lived at Winterfell and raised by wolves (I mean the Starks). His upbringing shaped his character so he's now to do with ice and snow. His true dad's sister is the only family member alive he's got and she's to do with dragons and fire. What is Targaryen about him must be within his genes and dna. Also his eyes could be like his dad's eyes. Rhaegar had dark blue/indigo eyes, Snow has dark cold eyes. He takes after his dad's warrior strength, deep thinking and ability to command. 

[Graydon Hicks]

and while in the north, where few southron lords are want to go, there are far fewer people who might recognise him as rhaegar's son.

[David Selig]

On 19/05/2017 at 7:11 PM, Ygrain said:

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.

Cat was annoyed when Jon bested Robb in something. That does not mean Jon tended to best Robb in most (or all) things. He certainly wasn't regarded as a young prodigy like Rhaegar by his family or anyone else.

[Wylla Manderly]

13 minutes ago, David Selig said:

Cat was annoyed when Jon bested Robb in something. That does not mean Jon tended to best Robb in most (or all) things. He certainly wasn't regarded as a young prodigy like Rhaegar by his family or anyone else.

You are wrong. In the Jon chapter, where he is elected Lord Commander he thinks about Cat and how she looked at him:  "She was looking at him the way she used to look at him at Winterfell, whenever he had bested Robb at sword or sums or most anything ...". This clearly says that he bested Robb more often than the other way round. If he is as accomplished as Rhaegar is another question, but he is clearly shown to be very capable.

[David Selig]

11 minutes ago, Wylla Manderly said:

You are wrong. In the Jon chapter, where he is elected Lord Commander he thinks about Cat and how she looked at him:  "She was looking at him the way she used to look at him at Winterfell, whenever he had bested Robb at sword or sums or most anything ...". This clearly says that he bested Robb more often than the other way round.

No, it doesn't. It says that almost every time Jon bested Robb at something that made Cat annoyed, not that Jon bested Robb almost every time.

[Lord Varys]

Jon has nothing of the Targaryens in him we can see. The Targaryens have silver-gold hairs and purple eyes. Those Targaryens who don't, also don't look like Targaryens. Baelor Breakspear was a Targaryen who looked nothing like a Targaryen.

Jon might have inherited some traits from his father, but if he did, those have nothing to do with the Targaryen hair and eyes.

Just as a Stark looking like Sansa, Robb, Bran, and Rickon doesn't have any prototypical Stark traits.

Speculating whether Jon intelligence, passions, sullenness, etc. are echoes of Rhaegar are actually pretty silly. Jon's character was shaped by the people who raised him and his surroundings, just as Rhaegar's was. Rhaegar's character was shaped a lot by the events of Summerhall, just as Jon's life was shaped by the story that he was Ned Stark's bastard.

What little we know of Rhaegar seems to indicate that he was much more gifted than Jon. He was a great singer, and avid reader, a good tourney rider, great knights, etc. Jon is a reasonably good swordsman and still training to get better, that's it. He never was an avid reader, a good singer/musician, a great tourney rider, etc. Whatever talents he may have inherited from his father, he didn't get the chance to develop or refine them in the Winterfell environment (and even less at the Wall).

And whatever traits he may have as a warrior/swordsman/rider (even his intelligence) could also be Stark traits he inherited from his mother Lyanna. Until we see a character in the books who knew Rhaegar see something of Rhaegar in Jon any speculation in that direction is moot.

[Castellan]

The resemblance is said to be to Arya anyway as much as Eddard - they are the two said to have the Stark looks, and Arys is also said to look very much like Lyanna.

I had to get fairly old before I would have made an argument for inherited personality and temperament but I am afraid I do now think that it can be pretty obvious. And Jon does seem to have some Rhaegar traits of that type. I agree there is nothing at all definitive to say he is Rhaegar's son (the best arguments are in Eddard's memories of the Tower of Joy and the unlikelhood of Eddard's begetting a bastard - too shy to ask Ashara to dance, painfully moralistic person).

I actually think its quite possible that though he will have heroic role he will never be publicly hailed as Rhaegar's son although there may be more details dropped in the text to support that conclusion e.g. if dragons liked him. Well, anyway, that's the kind of thing I'd like - that even after the last book fans are arguing about that and about just who the Prince who was promised was.

 

[The Sunland Lord]

His father was one. That's it. 

Raised by Starks as one of them. Influented mostly by his uncle Eddard and his cousins thought of him as their half-brother, but saw him as a brother. Some of them. Catelyn is a Tully and her open resentment for him doesn't change these facts. And all he knows is cold and North. 

We see these situations in real life are not much different. In the story matters because heritage/legacy is often crucial and may we add some supernatural segments because it's fantasy and we all know Targs are special for some reason.

 

[Ralphis Baratheon]

For all we know Jon has the singing voice of an angel. If he ever tried to sing along with other Northerners or Watch men he'd try to make his voice deep and manly. He'd never dare to try to hit the high notes like Rhaegar but who knows how Jon would sound if he did? He needs to believe in himself and let the music come from his heart. Then the realm will know him for Rhaegar's son. 

[Wolfgirly]

People are forgetting a very important thing: upbringing. Rhaegar was a crown prince who came from a powerful family and grew up royal. Jon Snow grew up in the north with the Starks, believing himself just a "bastard" as everyone called him that. He knows absolutely nothing about his real father, nor anyone else apart from Ned (who's taken his secrets to the grave) AND Bran who saw this during a warg timetrip.

Jon has certain characteristics of a leader and a warrior. Jon inherited his mother's hair and eyes but got his father's handsome features.

[sweetsunray]

6 hours ago, Wolfgirly said:

His true dad's sister is the only family member alive he's got and she's to do with dragons and fire.

The nephews and nieces of his true mother are alive too. They're just not Targ family, but Stark-Tullys.

[Grover Bluejoy]

On Invalid Date at 1:11 AM, Ygrain said:

It is actually not, but not because of the looks. Once again: it has never been disputed in any way that Rhaenys was Rhaegar's daughter, even though she looked nothing like him, she looked Dornish. In GRRMth, it is pretty common that kids take after one parent and the traits of the other are not visible.

Yep.

Especially when you read the descriptions of the offspring from a Targaryen & non-Targaryen, it seems they either look Valyrian or not Valyrian; there is no in between.

I know a lot of the Daynes are described as having Valyrian features, but we no confirmation that they have any Vayrian heritage whatsoever.

[The Twinslayer]

7 hours ago, David Selig said:

No, it doesn't. It says that almost every time Jon bested Robb at something that made Cat annoyed, not that Jon bested Robb almost every time.

You are correct.  And, even though Jon believes there is no one in Winterfell who can sit a horse as better than he can, he still acknowledges that Robb is the stronger jouster.