Full spoilers for Game of Thrones: Season 7 continue below. Make sure to read IGN's review of Season 7, and read on at your own risk.
Game of Thrones' seventh season culminated in two life-changing revelations for Jon Snow: first, he consummated his season-long romance with Daenerys Targaryen, and second, the audience learned he's actually the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, making him the Khaleesi's nephew.
While incest is nothing new to Game of Thrones, it's also not new for Jon Snow's end game. The Game of Thrones TV show has far outpaced George R.R. Martin's novels, so it's unclear (though assumed) whether Jon and Daenerys will pair up in the books.
But Martin's early three-book proposal to Harper Collins circa 1993 detailed another surprisingly love story that Jon found himself in with someone he considered family. Waterstones shared the proposal on Twitter in 2015 in a tweet that has since been deleted, but you can find the proposal in its entirety on Watchers on the Wall.
In this initial pitch, Jon Snow eventually fell in love with his sister Arya Stark. In this early version of the story, Martin intended that, after Robb Stark's death and Tyrion Lannister burned Winterfell, the surviving Starks (Bran, Arya and Catelyn) would go to Castle Black to seek assistance from Jon and the Lord Commander, Benjen Stark. But because the men of the Night's Watch gave up their family ties, Jon and Benjen couldn't help the Starks.
"It will lead to a bitter estrangement between Jon and Bran," wrote Martin. "Arya will be more forgiving... until she realizes, with terror, that she has fallen in love with Jon, who is not only her half-brother but a man of the Night's Watch, sworn to celibacy. Their passion will continue to torment Jon and Arya throughout the trilogy, until the secret of Jon's true parentage is finally revealed in the last book."
It's clear that much of this original proposal was scrapped as Martin expanded his plan from three books to eight, and some of the pitched storylines veer very far from anything we know or recognize in his A Song of Ice and Fire series or the HBO TV show. But what is interesting is Martin was already planning on the bait-and-switch of Jon not being Ned Stark's son, though if he was always going to be the child of Rhaegar and Lyanna, then Arya and Jon still would have been cousins and thus this still would have been incest.
However, there's more to Jon and Arya's love story than just their fraught familial connection. At the end of the first book in this proposed trilogy, another character would realize they're in love with Arya: Tyrion Lannister.
Fans have taken note that this storyline could line up with where Martin and the show are taking Jon and Daenerys's relationship. "Exiled, Tyrion will change sides, making common cause with the Starks to bring his brother [Jaime] down, and helplessly falling in love with Arya Stark while he's at it," wrote Martin. "His passion is, alas, unreciprocated, but no less intense for that, and it will lead to a deadly rivalry between Tyrion and Jon Snow."
Tyrion and Jon are currently allies, but could jealousy be what Tyrion's long look in the finale was all about? Let's face it, probably not. Game of Thrones would only have six more episodes to get through that sure-to-be-intense love story, and as GRRM wrote, all of these events details above were supposed to have happened in Book 1.
What is your favorite part of George R.R. Martin's initial Game of Thrones pitch that didn't come to pass? Let us know in the comments below.
Terri Schwartz is Editorial Manager of Entertainment at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.
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