One of the fun things about being a Game of Thrones fan is being able to read between the lines of George R.R. Martin’s books to discover an entire world’s worth of hidden stories. There are very few bit players in the books – every noble family has its own drama and machinations going on behind the scenes, and you can usually discover it if you follow the trail of breadcrumbs Martin sprinkles around the main story for readers to find.
The result of this is a huge community of fans that love nothing more than to share endless theories on Westeros politics and the direction of the final books. The most popular of these theories is R+L=J, a nice non-spoiler way of saying “Rheagar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark are the parents of Jon Snow.” This doesn’t just have repurcussions regarding who ends up on the Iron Throne – it also means Jon may be Azor Ahai, who is prophesized by followers of R’hllor to be the only one capable of defeating the Others.
You can watch an in depth video on the subject at the bottom of this post. But now there’s another theory currently gaining a lot of steam amongst fans that takes R+L=J one step further: that R+L=J+M, with the M being Bran Stark’s travelling companion Meera Reed. As crazy as it sounds, it actually fits what we know so far. Here’s all the details:
In the battle at the Tower of Joy to rescue Lyanna Stark (again, watch the vid if you have no idea what we’re talking about), everyone was killed except Ned Stark and Howland Reed. But instead of Lyanna only giving birth to Jon, she gave birth to twins – a boy and a girl. Lyanna made Ned promise he would save the children, so Ned and Howland each took one babe back with them and hid their Targaryen identities.
As for evidence: By both book and TV accounts, Jon and Meera are the same age. While Crannogmen like the Reeds are known for being small, TV show Meera is normal sized and much bigger than her brother Jojen. Then there’s her resemblance to Jon Snow:
We may not have to wait too long to find out the truth behind this particular theory – rumors abound that season six will feature a flashback to the Tower of Joy that reveals the truth of what happened there. Or not. It wouldn’t be surprising for the showrunners to just tease one aspect of the Tower theory without answering any questions beyond that.
And rest assured, there are plenty of other competing theories out there with just as much evidence, if not more. Fans have created an entire world out of tinfoil hat speculation, and just like real crackpot conspiracies, they contain just enough facts to seem plausible. R+L=J+M fits, but is it true?
(via io9)
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