Warning: Spoilers and speculation for Game of Thrones below
The season finale of Game of Thrones finally did it. The show confirmed that not only is Jon Snow the son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Lady Lyanna Stark, it used Gilly’s discovery (that Sam took credit for, the jerk) to spur Bran into traveling back in time to witness his aunt marry the heir to the throne. Jon is truly a Targaryen, in every way that matters and not a bastard at all. This was vindication for fans who have waited years, sometimes decades, of this confirmation. Then HBO took it a step further, revealing Jon Snow’s true name: Aegon Targaryen.
Wait, what?
Aegon? Really? That’s what you’re going with, Game of Thrones? Okay, I guess. Except that Rhaegar already had a son named Aegon with his first wife, Elia Martell. This name choice seems to be making things needlessly complicated. Fan theories had abounded that Jon’s true name would be Jaehaerys Targaryen, since Jaehaerys is a common royal name and HBO had yet to mention any of the myriad of Targaryen kings with that moniker. It seemed reasonable at the time that Game of Thrones was saving Jaehaerys for Jon, since as much as we all love Ned Stark, he was simple man. Changing Jaehaerys to Jon seems exactly like something Lord Stark would do. Instead, revealing Jon’s real name as Aegon creates some head-scratching questions.
Did Rhaegar approve this name? After all, he and Elia had a toddler with that exact same name. Not just in the books either. In the third season of Game of Thrones, in the episode entitled “And Now His Watch Has Ended,” Thoros of Myr recalls being in the throne room the day The Mountain brought Robert Baratheon and Tywin Lannister the bodies of Elia’s children. “House Clegane was built upon dead children. I saw them lay Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys before the Iron Throne.” Prince Aegon Targaryen, son of Rhaegar and Elia, died during the Sack of King’s Landing, an event that happened shortly before Lyanna gave birth. Assuming Lyanna knew her husband had been killed in the Battle of the Trident and the Targaryen heirs massacred by Lannister loyalists, it seems weird the Lyanna would steal her son’s name from her sister-wife’s recently deceased baby. Sociopathic weird, to be honest.
So what is going on here? My guess is HBO is once again combining characters. Much like how Sansa was slotted into the Bolton storyline that goes to Jeyne Poole in the novels, I believe Jon could be merged with Elia’s Aegon Targaryen for the show’s final season. In the novels, Aegon Targaryen is allegedly alive, going by the name Young Griff. At the end of A Dance With Dragons, Aegon and his protector, Lord Jon Connington, have set up a home base in Westeros and are making alliances with Dorne to bid for the Iron Throne. I doubt HBO would be willing to introduce a new player this late in the game, especially after they leveled the playing field with wildfire. But once Dany and Jon discover they are related, and that Jon’s claim to the throne is technically stronger, I can imagine the tentative alliance between aunt and nephew becoming strained. Blending Jon’s storyline with Young Griff’s would be an easy way to buy Jon allies. The people of Westeros may well prefer a Targaryen that grew up in their homeland, as opposed to a strange conqueror with foreign armies.
Another option is perhaps Rhaegar’s obsession with prophecy meant he believed whichever of his sons became “the prince that was promised” need to be named Aegon, either after Aegon the Conqueror or some other ancestor. So when Elia’s son died, perhaps Lyanna felt obligated to carry on the life’s work of her husband, naming their infant son, conceived specifically to further the prophecy*, as she felt Rhaegar would have wished. At least that way she doesn’t seem like a cold-hearted witch. Most likely though, Game of Thrones simply chose the name Aegon because it is the one most familiar to HBO’s audience and will make it easy to tie Jon to his ancestor, Aegon the Conqueror.
(*) In Martin’s novels, Dany comes across a vision of her brother Rhaegar in the House of the Undying. Elia Martell has just given birth to Aegon and Rhaegar is pensive, declaring that he must have at least one more child.
Will Jon’s true name in Martin’s novel be Aegon? If I had to guess, I’d say no. If he’d planned to reveal Jon as Aegon, I doubt George R.R. Martin would’ve have introduced Aegon Targaryen/Young Griff into the narrative. While the author has no problem with secondary characters sharing a first name (their are many women named Jeyne, after all), main characters don’t tend to overlap. Whatever Jon Targaryen’s true name is in Martin’s world, fans will continue to wait until The Winds of Winter reveal all.
