Full spoilers for Game of Thrones' Season 7 finale, "The Dragon and the Wolf," continue below.
At long last, once and for all, Game of Thrones has set the record straight: Jon Snow is not the bastard son of Ned Stark and some mystery woman, but instead the legitimate son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. Additionally, Jon Snow isn't his real name. Instead, his birth name is Aegon Targaryen.
This is a huge revelation for not only audiences but the show itself. (And yes, for the record, HBO did accidentally reveal this after Season 6.) Bran Stark's confirmation that Jon is the one true heir to the Iron Throne couldn't have come at a worse time, because it was right when Jon was in the middle of having sex with his aunt, Daenerys Targaryen.
Game of Thrones has been busy setting up the reveal about who Jon Snow's parents really are for seasons. In Season 6, Bran got the first hint that something was off when he witnessed his father, Ned, comforting his aunt, Lyanna, after she had just given birth to a baby boy in the Tower of Joy. That boy, as the show established, was actually Jon Snow.
Season 7 has leaned even more heavily into the true nature of Jon Snow's birthright. It was Gilly, of all people, who stumbled across a book in Oldtown that revealed Rhaegar had an annulment with his first wife, Elia Martell, in order to marry Lyanna, thus making Jon a legitimate Targaryen heir. An even greater, though less direct, hint at what was to come was when Daenerys Targaryen's dragon Drogon allowed Jon Snow to touch him.
The truth finally came out when Bran Stark sat down with Samwell Tarly in Winterfell. Bran knew that Jon was the bastard son of Rhaegar and Lyanna because of his Three-Eyed Raven visions, but Sam filled in the missing piece of the puzzle by revealing Rhaegar and Elia Tyrell's annulment. Bran returned to that point in time and confirmed it to be true, thus meaning, as he said, that "Robert's Rebellion was built on a lie." Rhaegar didn't kidnap and rape Lyanna after all.
So what does this mean? As Bran noted, this technically makes Jon the true ruler of Westeros. But will Daenerys Targaryen bend a knee to Jon like he bent a knee for her? Bran tells Sam that they must tell Jon who he really is, but to what end? The happiest scenario is that Daenerys and Jon get married -- and heck, maybe he's overcome Mirri Maz Duur's prophecy as he suggested and now Dany is pregnant.
But worst case scenario, this puts Daenerys and Jon at odds with one another, competing for the same throne. After all that has happened to bring the two together, that would make for a surprising turn of events heading into the eighth and final season.
"It complicates everything on a political level, on a personal level, and it just makes everything that could have been so neat and perfect for Jon and Dany, and it really muddies the waters," said showrunner David Benioff in the finale's "Inside the Episode" segment.
"The only way to really emphasize that was to tie those two worlds together cinematically and to have Bran actually narrating these facts over the footage of Jon and of Dany," said D.B. Weiss. "Just as we’re seeing these two people come together, we’re hearing the information that will inevitably, if not tear them apart, at least cause real problems in their relationship—and she’s his aunt."
Also in the Season 7 finale's "Inside the Episode" segment, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss spoke about the challenges of revealing information that many have suspected for years. “Jon’s not Jon Sand. He’s actually—as Bran finally overhears from Lyanna—Aegon Targaryen and that means he’s the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. That changes everything," said Benioff.
Added Weiss, "I would say the challenge with this sequence was finding a way to present information that at least a good portion of the audience already had in a way that was dramatic and exciting—it also had a new element to it. Part of the answer to how to go about doing that was in the montage intercut nature of it. It was about making it clear that this was almost like an information bomb that Jon was heading towards."
Game of Thrones' final season is only six episodes long, and might not air until as late as 2019. Presumably, it will kick off right from where Season 7 left off, with the White Walkers invading Westeros and Jon and Daenerys arriving in Winterfell to find out the key news from Bran and Sam.
Where do you hope Jon and Dany's relationship goes from here? What are your thoughts about the new Targaryen incest at play? What do you think comes from Jon's real parentage? Let us know in the comments below!
Terri Schwartz is Editorial Producer at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.
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