She Said/She Said is a (sporadically) daily video featuring HitFix Harpy Donna Dickens and HitFix Weekend Editor Jill Pantozzi discussing current events in geek news.
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WARNING: KIND OF SPOILERS FOR ‘GAME OF THRONES” INSIDE.
Why ‘kind of” spoilers? Because some folks don”t like to know anything unless it comes directly from the source material, be it the show or the novels. And while the following information about Jon Snow originates from an official HBO source, it”s their website and thus kind of a gray area because this is the world we live in.
Last season on Game of Thrones, audiences finally got to see inside the Tower of Joy after an unbearably long tease. There young Ned Stark (Robert Aramayo) and Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright) found Lyanna Stark (Aisling Franciosi) dying in a bed of childbirth blood. The infant boy in her arms that she passed to her brother? Jon Snow himself. And while ‘The Winds of Winter” episode never looked into the camera and gave everyone a genealogy lesson, the implication was clear: Jon Snow is the child of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen.
But now, HBO has confirmed Snow”s parentage on their website, MakingGameOfThrones via an infographic. Sure, the infographic looks like a Spirograph gone rogue, but once you get the hang of the color coding, the rest falls into place. The main thing to look at is the line connecting Jon Snow to his parents.
Image Credit: HBO
Perhaps the worst-kept secret of the series, confirming that Jon is indeed a Targaryen by blood doesn”t exactly solve the thorny (get it?) problem of the line of succession for the Iron Throne. If Rhaegar impregnated Lyanna outside of marriage via either a lover”s tryst or a rape than Jon is still a bastard. But if the two engaged in the long Targaryen tradition of bigamy, Jon jumps to the head of the line. Daenerys may be the daughter of the Mad King, but as her older brother”s son, Jon would still have precedence because patriarchy.
In the video above, HitFix Harpy's Donna Dickens and Jill Pantozzi discuss how we aren't exactly surprised by the reveal of Jon Snow's true parentage on 'Game of Thrones.' But there is an interesting omission or two from the infographic that could still provide genealogical surprises.