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Why is Jon's name Aegon?


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9 minutes ago, Tucu said:

That vision could be of a failed potential timeline similar to the vision of grown-up Rhaego.

The problem is that Rhaegar says something along the lines of "the dragon must have three heads -- there must be one more." This statement has been understood to mean that Rhaegar thought his first two children were two of the heads of the dragon and he needed one more child. If this vision is of what might have been with Rhaegar and Lyanna -- then Rhaegar, by naming Jon Aegon, appears to be disregarding his other two children (and if he was not, then he would have all three heads and would not need one more). And if Jon is TPTWP and the dragon must have three heads -- then Rhaegar would need TWO more heads -- not just one more head.

So the idea that this vision is not of what actually happened with Rhaegar and Elia -- but rather what might have happened with Rhaegar and Lyanna if they had both lived -- is not consistent with this evidence. So once again, I think it is fairly clear that the woman is Elia and the baby she is holding is Aegon, son of Rhaegar and Elia.

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15 minutes ago, Tucu said:

That vision could be of a failed potential timeline similar to the vision of grown-up Rhaego.

It's possible it was a vision of a potential future, but Rhaegar also said there must be one more, the dragon has three heads. Which leads me to believe he was with Elia, and it was his second child with Elia that he was with.

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6 minutes ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

The problem is that Rhaegar says something along the lines of "the dragon must have three heads -- there must be one more." This statement has been understood to mean that Rhaegar thought his first two children were two of the heads of the dragon and he needed one more child. If this vision is of what might have been with Rhaegar and Lyanna -- then Rhaegar, by naming Jon Aegon, appears to be disregarding his other two children (and if he was not, then he would have all three heads and would not need one more). And if Jon is TPTWP and the dragon must have three heads -- then Rhaegar would need TWO more heads -- not just one more head.

So the idea that this vision is not of what actually happened with Rhaegar and Elia -- but rather what might have happened with Rhaegar and Lyanna if they had both lived -- is not consistent with this evidence. So once again, I think it is fairly clear that the woman is Elia and the baby she is holding is Aegon, son of Rhaegar and Elia.

The second part of that vision is explicitly ambiguous as it is possible that vision-Rhaegar was talking directly to Dany

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He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany's, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. "There must be one more," he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. "The dragon has three heads."

 

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6 minutes ago, Tucu said:

The second part of that vision is explicitly ambiguous as it is possible that vision-Rhaegar was talking directly to Dany

 

But if he were talking to Dany, and saying that Aegon (Jon) and her are two of the heads and there must be a third, who was Rhaegar suggesting should be the third head? I believe Rhaegar thought three of his own children would be the three dragon heads.

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3 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

But if he were talking to Dany, and saying that Aegon (Jon) and her are two of the heads and there must be a third, who was Rhaegar suggesting should be the third head? I believe Rhaegar thought three of his own children would be the three dragon heads.

Tyrion, if he indeed were Mad Aerys son - afterall Dany is not Rhaegar's daughter either?

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5 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

But if he were talking to Dany, and saying that Aegon (Jon) and her are two of the heads and there must be a third, who was Rhaegar suggesting should be the third head? I believe Rhaegar thought three of his own children would be the three dragon heads.

As Notone implied above, given the nature of the vision we could be looking at a number of candidates for the 3rd head: Young Griff (if he is a Blackfyre), Tyrion is he is Aerys son, Dany+Jon's child and possible others.

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19 hours ago, falcotron said:

Here's the thing: Aegon I is described as "an enigma", and the Maesters argue that he did so much good and so much bad that it's hard to come to a verdict on him. And they've already had four more Aegons, and none of them were great Targaryens. Aemon the Dragonknight, on the other hand, is a legendary hero who's beloved by everyone in the realm more than a century after his death.

And if we're talking out-of-universe instead of in-universe, for the show, Aegon is just a guy we've heard about a few times, and a guy who has parallels to not Jon but Dany, while Aemon is a beloved character who was Jon's mentor for half the series.

So, while I understand the point, I'm not sure I can buy it.

But then I may be blinded by the fact that I like the idea of Aemon, and I like the idea of GRRM lining up the in-universe and out-of-universe reasons, and I think the show may have changed it as a misguided effort to make fans like me happy by nodding to Little Griff rather than for a better reason, and so on. Again, I still need to go over all the arguments.

To add to this, there is also the point in the books that have Jon saying "I am Aemon the Dragon Knight" in a memory of his childhood playing with Robb.  

That just feels like a hide in plain sight type situation that Martin would do.  Pile on that the interactions and parallels between Maester Aemon and Jon at the Wall. 

If I remember right, didn't Rhaegar often go talk with Aemon at the Wall?  Seems more likely he might name a second son Aemon after his mentor.  

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On ‎8‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 6:48 AM, J. Stargaryen said:

There are lots of clues in the story about Jon's name being Aegon. At least as many as there are for the most popular choice, Aemon. The biggest obstacle is actually a clue. The fact that Jon's older half brother is already named Aegon. (Btw, recall that GRRM has promised us a second Dance of the Dragons, and that in the first there were two Aegons. Now, I don't believe YG is really Rhaegar's son, but his name is Aegon, and that's all that really counts here.) Think of it like this, when we read that Ned Stark is Jon's father, the first woman most people logically would have ruled out as a possibility for his mother was Lyanna Stark. It's almost like there's a pattern to how GRRM lays out his mysteries. He's using the same trick in both instances to hide an otherwise obvious truth.

So, because Jon's older half-bro is named Aegon, it's the one and only name that we automatically rule out as a possibility. But imagine for a second that this wasn't the case. We all know that Aegon is the Targaryen name. With that in mind, it's very obvious that this should be Jon's real name. Unless GRRM provided some pretty strong reason for us to think otherwise. Which he does in the form of Jon's older half brother by Elia. However, Rhaegar and his other family are all dead by the time Jon is born, and it's pretty obvious from Ned's ToJ dream that everyone at the ToJ knows this. It's why the fight takes place, and it's why Lyanna extracts the promise from Ned. Because she knows that Rhaegar's other children have been murdered simply for being Rhaegar's children. 

What is the exact reason Lyanna chooses the name Aegon? I can't pin it down for certain, but I'm sure she was influenced by Rhaegar. In the HotU scene, he asks Elia, "What better name for a king?" Which he had already answered by naming his son and heir Aegon. Perhaps Lyanna wanted to honor his wishes by naming Rhaegar's only remaining son and heir Aegon. Perhaps it had something to do with the prophecy, which Rhaegar is describing in that scene. 

Speaking of, has anyone ever noticed how often people mistakenly believe that scene is of R+L=J? There's a reason for that. It's because of the prophecy stuff, PtwP and SoIaF, which better fits Jon than R+E=Aegon. I do not believe that is a coincidence. I believe that GRRM was hinting at Jon's true name here. That is, also Aegon.

I've given some other answers and evidence in my recent posts if anyone wants to check them out.

Very well put. Until reading your post, I was absolutely convinced that there's no way his name will be Aegon in the books. But you've made me think that it might be possible, and might actually make sense. Thanks for a reasonable, well thought-out response.

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8 minutes ago, Notone said:

Tyrion, if he indeed were Mad Aerys son - afterall Dany is not Rhaegar's daughter either?

 

3 minutes ago, Tucu said:

As Notone implied above, given the nature of the vision we could be looking at a number of candidates for the 3rd head: Young Griff (if he is a Blackfyre), Tyrion is he is Aerys son, Dany+Jon's child and possible others.

Not saying that the show and the books are the same, but if Tyrion was a Targ, the show would've probably revealed it by now. We still have six more episodes for revealing twists, but I'm personally not convinced Tyrion is a Targ. I could be wrong.

Also, step siblings and nephews being the three heads of the dragon doesn't seem poetic. And YG would probably fight against Dany and/or Jon since he might believe his mother was wronged and he is the rightful heir.

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11 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

 

Not saying that the show and the books are the same, but if Tyrion was a Targ, the show would've probably revealed it by now. We still have six more episodes for revealing twists, but I'm personally not convinced Tyrion is a Targ. I could be wrong.

Also, step siblings and nephews being the three heads of the dragon doesn't seem poetic. And YG would probably fight against Dany and/or Jon since he might believe his mother was wronged and he is the rightful heir.

We need to remember that Rhaegar had a very poor record on correctly interpreting prophecies, so his poetic interpretation could be invalid. I personally don't believe Tyrion is a "dragon", but he has been/will be in contact with all of them if Moqorro's vision is true:

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Dragons old and young, true and false, bright and dark. And you. A small man with a big shadow, snarling in the midst of it all

 

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1 hour ago, Khal Al said:

Sorry if someone has suggested this before. Is it possible that Elia's children weren't Rhaegars? This could explain why the marriage was annulled and Rhaegars use of the name Aegon again.

IIRC, one of the two had silver hair and purple eyes, so I'm sure both are Rhaegar's.

The most logical explanation for Jon being named Aegon is that Rhaegar considered his sons with Elia to be..."unworthy", if you know what I mean.

He initially believed them to be 2 of the 3 heads of the Dragon but as time went by he realized they actually weren't, so he needed to make a child with Lyanna.  

He named Jon Aegon because that's the name he intended since the beginning for TPTWP. He just thought Elia would be the right mother, until he realized she was not.

It makes sense if you think about it. Aegon is the Targ name, the name of the Conqueror, and Jon's fate is to become the greatest Conqueror of all time: the one that defeats Death itself.

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Unless I am missing something, which is possible, the vision in the House of the Undying is either a day gone by, or a day that never was.

Which could mean, that Rhaegar never was in that room with Elia and Aegon playing his harp.  More importantly, he never spoke the words:

"Aegon, what better name for a king."

"He has a song, he is the prince that was promised, his is the song of ice and fire."

"There must be one more, the dragon has three heads."

Going in, if we know that the vision may of never happened, then anything and everything in that paticular vision can be false or something that never happened.

Unless it is something that has already happened in the text, then we can't say for sure if any of those visions will ever happen.

We don't know if he thought Aegon was the prince that was promised, or even if he thought the dragon needed three heads.

IMO, the vision of Rhaegar, Elia, and Aegon is more likely to have not happened, which brings everything else into question.

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26 minutes ago, Tucu said:

The second part of that vision is explicitly ambiguous as it is possible that vision-Rhaegar was talking directly to Dany

Quote

He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany's, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. "There must be one more," he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. "The dragon has three heads."

 

But the same problem still exists. Dany understood the message to be a message to her and considered it to be telling her that she needed to find two more Targs to be the other two heads. But AGAIN, if Rhaegar was talking to Dany, he would have said that there must be TWO more. Dany only had herself as a potential head. She had no knowledge of Jon or anyone else who could be a potential head of the dragon. 

While I agree that the statement serves as an implicit message to Dany, Rhaegar could NOT have been talking directly to Dany because the reference to needing ONE more would make no sense as a statement to Dany as Dany needs to find TWO more.

So again, the statement ONLY makes sense if the woman is Elia. Otherwise the statement to Dany (or to Lyanna) would have had to have been that there must be two more. But Rhaegar said that there had to be one more because the dragon has three heads. That only  makes sense if Rhaegar thinks his two children are two of the heads and he needs one more -- and that was only true right after the birth of Aegon by Elia.

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14 minutes ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

But the same problem still exists. Dany understood the message to be a message to her and considered it to be telling her that she needed to find two more Targs to be the other two heads. But AGAIN, if Rhaegar was talking to Dany, he would have said that there must be TWO more. Dany only had herself as a potential head. She had no knowledge of Jon or anyone else who could be a potential head of the dragon. 

While I agree that the statement serves as an implicit message to Dany, Rhaegar could NOT have been talking directly to Dany because the reference to needing ONE more would make no sense as a statement to Dany as Dany needs to find TWO more.

So again, the statement ONLY makes sense if the woman is Elia. Otherwise the statement to Dany (or to Lyanna) would have had to have been that there must be two more. But Rhaegar said that there had to be one more because the dragon has three heads. That only  makes sense if Rhaegar thinks his two children are two of the heads and he needs one more -- and that was only true right after the birth of Aegon by Elia.

One possibility from that vision is that the 3 heads are: Dany (to whom vision-Rhaegar was talking to), plus the baby (Jon?) and another one that GRRM had not revealed yet at that point (YG?).

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4 minutes ago, Tucu said:

One possibility from that vision is that the 3 heads are: Dany (to whom vision-Rhaegar was talking to), plus the baby (Jon?) and another one that GRRM had not revealed yet at that point (YG?).

OK -- a bit convoluted but maybe. So we have to conclude that the vision is of something that might have been but never was -- combined with vision-Rhaegar talking to vision-Lyanna for part of the conversation and then switching to talking to Dany while trying to let her know that there has to be one more in addition to her and the baby -- even though Dany would have no idea who the baby was either. I suppose that is all possible -- but I think the simpler explanation -- that the vision is of a conversation that actually happened between Rhaegar and Elia -- and the vision is shown to Dany because it has an implicit message for her but is not being spoken directly to her -- is more likely.

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To me it seems certain that we will learn the House of the Undying vision was of Jon's birth.

The timeline of when Rhaegar leaves the Tower, how long it is until Ned arrives, when exactly Jon is born is all a matter of conjecture. Lyanna could have died weeks after giving birth from complications.

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6 minutes ago, good girl said:

To me it seems certain that we will learn the House of the Undying vision was of Jon's birth.

The timeline of when Rhaegar leaves the Tower, how long it is until Ned arrives, when exactly Jon is born is all a matter of conjecture. Lyanna could have died weeks after giving birth from complications.

So Rhaegar named Jon Aegon before the other Aegon even died -- so he would two sons with the same name? And we know that at least a couple of months past between Rhaegar leaving ToJ and Ned arriving -- and Lyanna almost certainly died from complications of childbirth -- so she could not have lingered that long between childbirth and death -- women who died of childbirth complications died much sooner than a couple months after childbirth.

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5 minutes ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

So Rhaegar named Jon Aegon before the other Aegon even died -- so he would two sons with the same name? And we know that at least a couple of months past between Rhaegar leaving ToJ and Ned arriving -- and Lyanna almost certainly died from complications of childbirth -- so she could not have lingered that long between childbirth and death -- women who died of childbirth complications died much sooner than a couple months after childbirth.

I find it much more compelling that George wrote a scene about the birth of one of the main characters in the series rather than a scene about a dead baby (with Young Griff certainly a Blackfyre)

It is classic George mystery writing. Why is the woman never described?

 

I don't know if a couple of months pass or not. Rhaegar goes from the TOJ to the Trident via KL and then Ned makes the reverse trip. Riding in haste both ways. And Lyanna can survive for as long as the plot requires.

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1 hour ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

So again, the statement ONLY makes sense if the woman is Elia. Otherwise the statement to Dany (or to Lyanna) would have had to have been that there must be two more. But Rhaegar said that there had to be one more because the dragon has three heads. That only  makes sense if Rhaegar thinks his two children are two of the heads and he needs one more -- and that was only true right after the birth of Aegon by Elia.

The woman in the vision is definitely Elia. Ran's HoTU entry at The Citadel says that Martin confirmed the vision to be Elia, Rhaegar and new born Aegon so there is really no reason to entertain any other alternatives unless one considers Ran to be lying.

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