Jon Snow's Eye Colour

[Bael's Bastard]

On 8/30/2017 at 1:15 PM, Ashbolt said:

So, going by the theory of 'R+L=J', Jon Snow is a Targaryen, however, the lack of Valyrian features in Jon has always frustrated me. In other people of part-Valyrian heritage (Bittersteel, House Dayne, Valarr Targaryen, etc.), there is at least one Valyrian feature so why does Jon have none? Of course there is one other case where a Targaryen hasn't had Valyrian features (Baelor Breakspear) but that could just be a one-off. I refused to believe that Jon also had no Valyrian features so I looked into his eye colour (dark-grey) and this led me to find the 'High Valyrian Vocabulary' page. On this page I discovered that the High Valyrian word for purple was also the word for dark, black, dark-coloured and grey.

• zōbrie ['zoːbri͡e], -ior

adj. III dark; black; dark-colored; grey; purple

Could this be evidence for Jon's eye colour being purple? If the Valyrians thought the colours so similar that they could be shared by the same word, surely Jon's eyes could just be another shade/variation of purple.

I doubt Jon's eyes are any shade of purple, but I do think that the darkness of Jon's shade of grey may be influenced by his Targaryen ancestry. In AGOT, Bran's POV describes Jon's eyes as a grey so dark they seemed almost black.

This is somewhat similar to the description of Young Griff's eyes in Tyrion's POV in ADWD as being blue and dark, but appearing black in the lamplight, and seeming purple in the light of dusk.

We must also consider that there is more to traits than hair and eye color. His hair could favor Rhaegar's in texture, his nose, or jaw, or cheeks, or frame, or any number of traits could favor Rhaegar. Jon also has Blackwood ancestry on both sides, from Betha paternally, and from Melantha maternally.  

Also keep in mind that Orys Baratheon was rumored to be half-Targaryen despite having black hair and black eyes.

[Bael's Bastard]

20 hours ago, Lollygag said:

She really wanted to know who his mother was to the point it ate away at her, so I'm pretty sure Catelyn and everyone else looked at him very closely.

Especially for any hint of purple eyes since the dominant theory was that his mother was Ashara.

Great points.

[LynnS]

Bran describes Jon as having grey eyes so dark they look black:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Bran I

"No," Jon Snow said quietly. "It was not courage. This one was dead of fear. You could see it in his eyes, Stark." Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black, but there was little they did not see. He was of an age with Robb, but they did not look alike. Jon was slender where Robb was muscular, dark where Robb was fair, graceful and quick where his half brother was strong and fast.

Jon describes himself as being grey of eye:

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Jon I

All in black, he was a shadow among shadows, dark of hair, long of face, grey of eye. Black moleskin gloves covered his hands; the right because it was burned, the left because a man felt half a fool wearing only one glove.

Sam also describes Jon with grey eyes:

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Samwell I

Jon, he'd said, but Jon was gone. It was Lord Snow who faced him now, grey eyes as hard as ice.

Ned also had dark grey eyes:

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Catelyn V

Bones, Catelyn thought. This is not Ned, this is not the man I loved, the father of my children. His hands were clasped together over his chest, skeletal fingers curled about the hilt of some longsword, but they were not Ned's hands, so strong and full of life. They had dressed the bones in Ned's surcoat, the fine white velvet with the direwolf badge over the heart, but nothing remained of the warm flesh that had pillowed her head so many nights, the arms that had held her. The head had been rejoined to the body with fine silver wire, but one skull looks much like another, and in those empty hollows she found no trace of her lord's dark grey eyes, eyes that could be soft as a fog or hard as stone. They gave his eyes to crows, she remembered.

I would characterize Jon's eye color as slate-grey which would fit with Tyrion's observation that Jon has more of the North in him.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon I

"Lord Eddard Stark is my father," Jon admitted stiffly.Lannister studied his face. "Yes," he said. "I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."

Not sure if Tyrion bases this strictly on the Stark look or something else that pops up in Northern bloodlines:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Davos III

"Ser Marlon Manderly." He was a head taller than Davos and three stones heavier, with slate-grey eyes and a haughty way of speaking. "I have the honor to be Lord Wyman's cousin and commander of his garrison. Follow me."

A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

Bronze Yohn had slate-grey eyes, half-hidden beneath the bushiest eyebrows she had ever seen. They crinkled when he looked down at her. "Do I know you, girl?"

 

 

[Springwatch]

It sounds possible that some of the Targaryens of old had dark grey eyes, and this went into the history books as purple. In that case, Jon could have a Targ eye colour.

[lojzelote]

On 31. 8. 2017 at 3:40 AM, Lord Varys said:

Chances are not that good that Jon does have Valyrian eyes of any shade. Blue or purple eyes are not grey or black eyes. And not all Targaryens or Valyrian have eyes the shade of purple or violet. Some simply have blue eyes.

The examples of Daemon II Blackfyre - who made his eyes appear more bluish when wearing blue and more purplish when wearing violet clothes - and Prince Aegon's blue hair cannot be transferred to Jon Snow. Jon's eyes are described only once and we never read about them changing their color when Jon changed his wardrobe. In that sense we do have every reason to believe they are, in fact, a dark grey which can look black under certain conditions.

A dark purple could also appear like black but then it would still be a dark purple. Just as a dark blue might.

But then the author would have given Jon blue or purple eyes resembling black or he would have given him black eyes which, under certain conditions, look blue or purple. But he hasn't done such a thing.

Jon has the eyes of his mother. Stark eyes, not Valyrian eyes. He could have Rhaegar's nose, ears, hands, etc., but I doubt George is ever going to tell us if that's the case. It is not likely that anybody closely knowing Prince Rhaegar is going to examine Jon's body in detail. Not to mention that such people might not exactly remember Rhaegar all that well. He is dead for over fifteen years now.

People might certainly look for those standard Targaryen traits in Jon when they learn that he is supposedly Rhaegar's son but them actually finding any such traits hiding in plain sight would be silly. Purple eyes and silver-gold hair are pretty conspicuous.

Well, according to Dany's HotU vision, Rhaegar and Viserys looked very much alike, so if Jon shares any of his father's features, there's a chance she might notice. By the description of Jon we have got so far though, it should hardly something that strikes her at the first glance.

 

As for grey vs. purple eyes, my own eyes happen to dark grey, and I assure you that except for some weird trick of light, there's no way they can be mistaken for indigo, lilac, plum, amethyst or whatever shade of violet in existence. The idea that Jon's eyes have been dark purple this whole time, but nobody including people close to him like Arya, Robb, or Sam have never noticed doesn't make much sense. We may then just as well believe that all of Catelyn and Ned's children have blue-and-grey eyes, but but everybody including themselves is convinced that Arya has the grey eyes of the Starks and Robb and rest have the blue eyes of the Tullys, because that's what they expect due to their hair color.

Besides, Catelyn was eager to discover the identity of Jon's mother and due to servants' talk she believed that Jon's mother might have been Ashara Dayne, the famous beauty with striking purple eyes. If Jon's eyes appeared just the slightest bit purple, it would not have escaped her notice and confirmed his mother's identity in her mind. She also disliked the idea that Jon's inherited the quintessential Stark looks, while her own sons all have the Tully look. She would have been looking for any difference between Jon and Ned she could find.

[lojzelote]

14 hours ago, LynnS said:

Bran describes Jon as having grey eyes so dark they look black:

Jon describes himself as being grey of eye:

Sam also describes Jon with grey eyes:

Ned also had dark grey eyes:

I would characterize Jon's eye color as slate-grey which would fit with Tyrion's observation that Jon has more of the North in him.

Not sure if Tyrion bases this strictly on the Stark look or something else that pops up in Northern bloodlines:

 

 

According to Tyrion, Jon is incredibly similar to Ned:

Quote

The boy absorbed that all in silence. He had the Stark face if not the name: long, solemn, guarded, a face that gave nothing away. Whoever his mother had been, she had left little of herself in her son.

There's next to no chance that Jon bears a strong resemblance to Rhaegar. I mean, "whoever his mother had been, she had left little of herself in their son". Why would Tyrion think that if Jon didn't really look like Ned all that much.

Anyway, thanks for the quotes. Going by the way Jon's eyes are described in the text, there is nothing exceptional about them in comparison to the eyes of other Starks.

All of the Northern houses are related to some extent, so it's not that surprising that they sport similar features. Jon almost mistakes Alys Karstark for Arya when she arrives at the Wall.

Btw, this is Waymar Royce's physical description:

Quote

Ser Waymar Royce was the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs. He was a handsome youth of eighteen, grey-eyed and graceful and slender as a knife.

Again, nothing surprising. We find out in TWoIaF that the Starks and the Royces have intermarried in the past.

For that matter, the similarity between Jon's and Waymar's description has led to (crackpot) theories that the Others' have been searching for Jon this whole time.

[Ser Petyr Parker]

On 30/08/2017 at 6:42 PM, Ashbolt said:

Mention of the show 'confirmation' has been removed. Thank you.

Not that there is any meaningful difference any more. You can still tell exactly what has been removed.

[LynnS]

5 hours ago, lojzelote said:

There's next to no chance that Jon bears a strong resemblance to Rhaegar. I mean, "whoever his mother had been, she had left little of herself in their son". Why would Tyrion think that if Jon didn't really look like Ned all that much.

Tyrion doesn't know that Jon's mother is Lyanna and believes she is some woman.  Someone other than a Stark and he sees very little in Jon other than Stark features.  What is lacking in Jon's appearance are his father's features.   

[cgrav]

Maybe it's simply that Valyrian features are recessive, and so only show up reliably when a child gets a set of those genes from both sides. 

Hair and eye color are the main traits we're looking at here, and in real life, those traits come down to a pretty simple dominant vs recessive pattern. As long as, say, First Men genes are dominant, the Valyrian genes can't be expressed. Fairly purebred First Men stock like Lyanna Stark would cover Rhaegar's recessive traits. 

[lojzelote]

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Tyrion doesn't know that Jon's mother is Lyanna and believes she is some woman.  Someone other than a Stark and he sees very little in Jon other than Stark features.  What is lacking in Jon's appearance are his father's features.   

Well, of course. The point is, Jon looks very much like Ned, although Tyrion isn't aware than he's not Jon's biological father, merely a maternal uncle.

[Lady Lia]

In regard to the language issue, there are actually many cultures and languages that use the same word for colours we consider different (typically, green and blue, or blue, black and purple). It doesn't mean they can't tell the difference, or can't specify the exact shade if they need to, any more than English speakers can't tell the difference between light blue and dark blue because we call them both blue. High Valyrian apparently doesn't differentiate between purple and grey, which is interesting but not very relevant to a book written in English. At best, it's a private joke on the part of whoever created the language.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

17 hours ago, lojzelote said:

As for grey vs. purple eyes, my own eyes happen to dark grey, and I assure you that except for some weird trick of light, there's no way they can be mistaken for indigo, lilac, plum, amethyst or whatever shade of violet in existence. The idea that Jon's eyes have been dark purple this whole time, but nobody including people close to him like Arya, Robb, or Sam have never noticed doesn't make much sense. We may then just as well believe that all of Catelyn and Ned's children have blue-and-grey eyes, but but everybody including themselves is convinced that Arya has the grey eyes of the Starks and Robb and rest have the blue eyes of the Tullys, because that's what they expect due to their hair color.

Had to weigh in on this. I like to call my eyes dark blue. In reality they also have a lot of gray in them as well. What color they look depends on things like what I'm wearing. If I wear black, my eyes look dark grey to black depending on lighting. When I wear blue they look bluer. When I wear purple they look violet. For the record I have no Valyrian ancestry...as far as I know.

It's not outside the realm of possibility that a kid with brown (which is a darkish color) hair, who never wears blue or purple, could have purple eyes that just look really, really dark gray. To an extent people see what they expect, and no one around Jon is thinking to see any purple in his eyes, just as no one around Egg looked for purple in his eyes until they saw him with his silver hair grown in or he presented a Targaryen ring.

One Targaryen trait that tends to show up no matter what else the kids look like is eyes that are some shade of purple. The only Targs who are specifically said to not have purple eyes are Alysanne and Valarr who both had blue, which is also found in Valyrian genetics*. I think we can probably all agree that Jon's eyes are most likely not blue.

Really all we can do is wait and see what GRRM writes about this. If he never mentions purple in Jon's eyes, then they are just plain Stark grey and that's that. If he has them change color when Jon wears purple, blue, dyes his hair, etc, then that's that. 

*I just had a cool thought. What if the Valyrians all had blue eyes originally, and bloodbonding with dragons/fire led to the purple eyes?

[Ygrain]

3 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Had to weigh in on this. I like to call my eyes dark blue. In reality they also have a lot of gray in them as well. What color they look depends on things like what I'm wearing. If I wear black, my eyes look dark grey to black depending on lighting. When I wear blue they look bluer. When I wear purple they look violet. For the record I have no Valyrian ancestry.... as far as I know.

Such moments always make me happy with my plain brown eyes

[Julia H.]

4 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Had to weigh in on this. I like to call my eyes dark blue. In reality they also have a lot of gray in them as well. What color they look depends on things like what I'm wearing. If I wear black, my eyes look dark grey to black depending on lighting. When I wear blue they look bluer. When I wear purple they look violet. For the record I have no Valyrian ancestry...as far as I know.
 

That's interesting. Before going to the Wall, Jon says goodbye to Robb, and Robb remarks that soon Jon will be dressed in NW black, and Jon replies that black has always been his colour. That may suggest that he typically wears black (even if not all black) even before joining the Watch. 

 

4 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Really all we can do is wait and see what GRRM writes about this. If he never mentions purple in Jon's eyes, then they are just plain Stark grey and that's that. If he has them change color when Jon wears purple, blue, dyes his hair, etc, then that's that. 

 

 

[Hodor the Articulate]

On 31/08/2017 at 5:15 AM, Ashbolt said:

On this page I discovered that the High Valyrian word for purple was also the word for dark, black, dark-coloured and grey.

• zōbrie ['zoːbri͡e], -ior

adj. III dark; black; dark-colored; grey; purple

Could this be evidence for Jon's eye colour being purple? If the Valyrians thought the colours so similar that they could be shared by the same word, surely Jon's eyes could just be another shade/variation of purple.

No, Jon's eyes are mentioned as being grey quite a few times throughout the books. But this could still be considered thematically relevant.

[lojzelote]

8 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Had to weigh in on this. I like to call my eyes dark blue. In reality they also have a lot of gray in them as well. What color they look depends on things like what I'm wearing. If I wear black, my eyes look dark grey to black depending on lighting. When I wear blue they look bluer. When I wear purple they look violet. For the record I have no Valyrian ancestry...as far as I know.

It's not outside the realm of possibility that a kid with brown (which is a darkish color) hair, who never wears blue or purple, could have purple eyes that just look really, really dark gray. To an extent people see what they expect, and no one around Jon is thinking to see any purple in his eyes, just as no one around Egg looked for purple in his eyes until they saw him with his silver hair grown in or he presented a Targaryen ring.

One Targaryen trait that tends to show up no matter what else the kids look like is eyes that are some shade of purple. The only Targs who are specifically said to not have purple eyes are Alysanne and Valarr who both had blue, which is also found in Valyrian genetics*. I think we can probably all agree that Jon's eyes are most likely not blue.

Really all we can do is wait and see what GRRM writes about this. If he never mentions purple in Jon's eyes, then they are just plain Stark grey and that's that. If he has them change color when Jon wears purple, blue, dyes his hair, etc, then that's that. 

*I just had a cool thought. What if the Valyrians all had blue eyes originally, and bloodbonding with dragons/fire led to the purple eyes?

Well, I used to have blue eyes as a baby, but during a couple of months they have gone utterly grey with no hint of blue. It was my grandmother that had beautiful blue-grey eyes and I used to kinda envy them to her lol.

Targaryens can have differently colored eyes. One of Shiera Seastar´s eyes mismatched eyes was famously green. If one eye can be green, why not another? Plus all three eldest Rhaenyra´s sons sported brown eyes. That aside, we don´t know the eye color of many other Targaryens with a non-Targ parent - like in case of Egg and Betha´s children. We know that Jaehaerys had huge pale lilac eyes, but the other four are a mystery.

I guess I simply see no reason as to we should mistrust the text in this case. Jon´s eyes have been described the exact same way as Ned´s, and everybody thinks they are grey, including himself. Dark puple eyes are not downright impossible for him, but there is sure as hell nothing in the text that would indicate that they are not really gray right now. I mean, GRRM even bothered with including Ashara Dayne as a candidate for Jon´s mother. There is little reason as to why he should hide from readers that Jon´s eyes are really purple. Ashara Dayne is also the reason why I believe that people would have been looking for the puple in his eyes. Not only Catelyn, but all those gossiping servants as well.

For that matter, Alisser Thorne´s eyes were described as onyx, so darkly colored eyes cannot be all that special.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, lojzelote said:

Well, I used to have blue eyes as a baby, but during a couple of months they have gone utterly grey with no hint of blue. It was my grandmother that had beautiful blue-grey eyes and I used to kinda envy them to her lol.

Pretty much all (fair-skinned?) children are born with blue eyes, aren't they? Colors can change later on.

Eye color really changes a lot under different lighting conditions in movies and TV shows. Terry Farrell's eyes often appear to be violet or purple in DS9, and Gillian Anderson's can look green rather often in the The X Files despite the fact that they actually are blue.

1 hour ago, lojzelote said:

Targaryens can have differently colored eyes. One of Shiera Seastar´s eyes mismatched eyes was famously green. If one eye can be green, why not another? Plus all three eldest Rhaenyra´s sons sported brown eyes. That aside, we don´t know the eye color of many other Targaryens with a non-Targ parent - like in case of Egg and Betha´s children. We know that Jaehaerys had huge pale lilac eyes, but the other four are a mystery.

From the portrait of Egg's sons we can deduce that Daeron seems to have to have the same eyes as his father Aegon while Duncan seems to have dark eyes like his mother.

One assumes that Princess Shaera was also a prototypical Valyrian or else it would be very odd that Aerys, Rhaella, Rhaegar, Viserys, Daenerys, and Aegon all have the standard Valyrian features.

Princess Rhaelle is an interesting case. If she resembled Betha it could help explain why Steffon, Robert, Stannis, Renly, and their descendants all look like standard Baratheons. After all, Jocelyn Baratheon's daughter Rhaenys looked like a proper Targaryen, confirming that the Baratheons can pass down the Valyrian features, too.

And who knows? Perhaps the blue eyes of the Baratheon brothers and Shireen are a Valyrian trait inherited from Rhaelle? Orys Baratheon didn't have them.

[lojzelote]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Pretty much all (fair-skinned?) children are born with blue eyes, aren't they? Colors can change later on.

Eye color really changes a lot under different lighting conditions in movies and TV shows. Terry Farrell's eyes often appear to be violet or purple in DS9, and Gillian Anderson's can look green rather often in the The X Files despite the fact that they actually are blue.

From the portrait of Egg's sons we can deduce that Daeron seems to have to have the same eyes as his father Aegon while Duncan seems to have dark eyes like his mother.

One assumes that Princess Shaera was also a prototypical Valyrian or else it would be very odd that Aerys, Rhaella, Rhaegar, Viserys, Daenerys, and Aegon all have the standard Valyrian features.

Princess Rhaelle is an interesting case. If she resembled Betha it could help explain why Steffon, Robert, Stannis, Renly, and their descendants all look like standard Baratheons. After all, Jocelyn Baratheon's daughter Rhaenys looked like a proper Targaryen, confirming that the Baratheons can pass down the Valyrian features, too.

And who knows? Perhaps the blue eyes of the Baratheon brothers and Shireen are a Valyrian trait inherited from Rhaelle? Orys Baratheon didn't have them.

Yes, I believe that blue eyes in newborns are the standard.

Well yeah, Elizabeth Taylor´s eyes are supposed to look violet in certain light, no? I believe that GRRM himself said that Ashara´s eyes were like that. Which was a bit of a letdown to be honest. They seem pretty blue to me for most part. I expected a more vibrant purple hue like in my avatar.

You can recognize eye color in that small picture? Clearly, Daeron had silver hair, but it doesn´t neccessarily equal purple eyes as well. I have always assumed that Shaera looked pure Valyrian, mostly because she was Aerys´s mother and.. it just seems right that both parents of the Mad King would have looked like protypical Targaryens? No idea about Rhaelle, but IIRC weren´t the blue eyes supposed to be a part of the Baratheon superdominant look? It could have been passed down from the Durrandons. Duncan I´ve always imagined to look like a Blackwood entirely, but it´s only my gut feeling.

[Ygrain]

57 minutes ago, lojzelote said:

Yes, I believe that blue eyes in newborns are the standard.

 

My son's eyes are brown so dark they look black, and have been since day one.

[BalerionTheCat]

If Jon had purple eyes or silver hair, hiding his identity would have no sense.

But "Jon’s eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black" (AGoT Bran I). They could be dark indigo. And Rhaegar "eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac" (ACoK Daenerys  IV). So Jon's eyes may be quite like his father. The Starks have grey or dark grey eyes. So one would see dark grey almost back, rather than "indigo", in Jon's eyes.