Game Of Thrones: Jon Snow's Family Tree Explained

This post contains spoilers for HBO's "Game of Thrones" and the "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series.

We're told over and over again throughout "Game of Thrones" that Jon Snow's whole deal is "being a bastard." Played by Kit Harington, Jon shows up in the pilot as the apparent bastard son of the honorable Ned Stark (Sean Bean), the patriarch of House Stark in the northern reaches of Westeros, and some random tavern wench. But when you learn more about Ned and his nature, the idea that Jon could possibly be the result of an affair seems sort of ludicrous. Despite that, Jon is constantly met with hostility from Ned's wife Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley), who thinks Jon is a reminder of Ned's greatest misstep as a husband, and he's not treated with as much kindness and respect as his siblings Robb (Richard Madden), Sansa (Sophie Turner), Arya (Maisie Williams), Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), and Rickon (Art Parkinson). (Even the Stark's Greyjoy ward Theon, played by Alfie Allen, dunks on Jon whenever he gets the chance.) So what is Jon's deal?

The bottom line is that Jon Snow isn't a bastard at all, but a legitimate heir to the Iron Throne ... and after Ned goes and gets his head chopped off at the end of the show's first season, the secret seems to die with him, because Jon would have been killed as a mere infant if anyone but Ned knew about his true identity. So what happens to Jon throughout "Game of Thrones," who are his parents, and does his highborn lineage ever prove important in the HBO series? (The answer to that last thing is "no," but we'll get there.)

During the first season of "Game of Thrones," Jon leaves Winterfell and the Starks behind to go serve in the Night's Watch at Castle Black, a sort of northern island of misfit toys in Westeros meant for bastards and criminals so they can protect the realm from what's beyond the Wall. (Unfortunately for Jon, he is neither a bastard nor a criminal, but he ends up serving his time anyway.) Ned leaves Jon with a promise that next time they meet, he'll tell the truth about Jon's mother — a promise he's unable to keep after his head becomes separated from his body — and Jon ends up making inroads with his fellow Night's Watchmen, especially Samwell Tarly (John Bradley).

Jon faithfully serves the Night's Watch for a while and even becomes the group's Lord Commander, but when there's significant dissent over the fact that he wants to make inroads with wildlings, the free folk who live in the dangerous terrain north of the Wall, he faces a mutiny. During the season 5 finale, a whole gang of his men stab and kill Jon; luckily, there's a Red Priestess wandering around in the neighborhood named Melisandre (Carice van Houten) who brings him back to life in the second episode of season 6, at which point Jon declares that his "watch is ended" and travels back to the Stark family home of Winterfell.

After being resurrected, Jon goes full hero mode, beating down a "fellow" bastard Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) to retake Winterfell and reuniting with Sansa in the process. Then, at the end of the 6th season of "Game of Thrones," a bombshell drops courtesy of the newly-omniscient Bran Stark: Jon isn't actually a bastard at all.

That's right, Jon Snow, who spent his life believing that he was a shameful representation of his father Ned Stark's biggest mistake, isn't a bastard. He's actually a Targaryen prince. 

During the reign of King Aerys II Targaryen, also known as the "Mad King," Aerys intended for his son Prince Rhaegar Targaryen to marry Elia Martell, a princess of Dorne. Even though they did wed, we later learn that Rhaegar has the marriage annulled by the realm's High Septon. Around the same time, Rhaegar "randomly" "kidnaps" Lyanna Stark, Ned's beloved sister and the object of Robert Baratheon's (Mark Addy in the series) affection; as it turns out, Lyanna was a willing participant in this alleged abduction. (In the books written by George R.R. Martin, "A Song of Ice and Fire," this is hinted at a full year before Lyanna and Rhaegar disappear during a tournament when Rhaegar chooses to give his favor not to Elia, but Lyanna, in full view of the court.)

Thanks to his newfound powers as the Three-Eyed Raven — a being that can see through all of space and time — Bran flashes back to a showdown between his father (played in his younger years by Robert Aramayo), Ned's right-hand man Howland Reed (Leo Woodruff), and Rhaegar's guard Ser Arthur Dayne (Luke Roberts). When Ned and Howland best the powerful knight, they find a dying Lyanna in the tower ... with a baby. Lyanna begs Ned to protect the baby and tells her brother that the infant's name is Aegon Targaryen before she dies, and we learn along with Bran that the baby grows up to be Jon Snow. Knowing full well that a furious and vengeful Robert would have had the baby slaughtered on sight, Ned hid Jon's identity, taking a hit to his reputation by pretending the boy was his bastard.

The very gross — and dare I say, icky — aspect of Jon Snow's parentage is the fact that, unbeknownst to both parties, Jon starts an intimate relationship with his own aunt before he learns about his real identity. Unfortunately, incest is a pretty popular trend within the Targaryen family, but even more unfortunately for Jon, he doesn't even know he's doing it when he first romances Daenerys Targaryen, the self-appointed "Mother of Dragons" and Khaleesi played throughout the series by Emilia Clarke. Let's back up for a moment, though — how do these two even meet?

In season 7 of "Game of Thrones," Jon travels to Daenerys' familial stronghold, Dragonstone (once held by her ancestor Rhaenyra Targaryen, who leads the prequel series "House of the Dragon") to ask for her help in defeating the monstrous White Walkers, particularly because Dragonstone is home to a huge reserve of a natural resource known as dragonglass (one of the only substances deadly to White Walkers and their wights). The two characters butt heads at first, particularly because Jon refuses to "bend the knee" and ignores Daenerys' concerns about the Iron Throne in favor of convincing her that the White Walkers are a deadlier threat. When Jon and a gang of merry idiots ultimately travel beyond the Wall to capture a single wight (a stupid mission for about a million reasons) and end up in mortal peril, requiring Daenerys to come rescue them on dragonback, she loses one of her three dragons, Viserion, to the Night King (Vladimir Furdik) ... at which point she pledges her support to Jon, and the two get hot and heavy more or less immediately.

Jon and Daenerys' relationship is, all things considered, going pretty well until the season 8 premiere, "Winterfell," when Sam — who has been studying records of Westeros at the Citadel and figures out who Jon's parents really are — drops the bombshell that his real name is Aegon Targaryen, and he has the best claim to the Iron Throne. This is enormous, particularly because it confirms a theory that hasn't even been clarified fully in the books ... so this information probably has huge ramifications for the end of "Game of Thrones," right?

No. Jon's lineage has absolutely no bearing on the remainder of "Game of Thrones," despite the fact that the guy we've been following since the pilot who thinks he's nothing but a shameful bastard is the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms should he choose to reveal this secret. In the second episode of season 8, Jon spills the beans to Daenerys, who's left shocked and furious; after they work together to fend off the Night King during the Battle of Winterfell, Daenerys asks Jon to keep his identity a secret so that he doesn't get in the way of her long-held dream of becoming the queen. He mostly does, except for the fact that he tells Sansa and Arya, at which point Sansa tells her estranged husband (and, honestly, friend) Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage). Tyrion, continuing the game of telephone, tells Westeros' version of Gossip Girl, Varys (Conleth Hill), who starts bugging Jon to just accept his birthright already.

It's incredibly frustrating — particularly for fans of "A Song of Ice and Fire" who waited literal decades for the theory known as "R+L=J," or "Rhaegar + Lyanna = Jon," to be confirmed — that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss made such a huge reveal on their show only to ultimately toss it aside as the eighth and final season of "Game of Thrones" sprinted to the finish line as quickly as humanly possible. (It's far from the only plotline that the series abandoned; just ask any fan about "The Prince Who Was Promised" and get ready for a long rant.) Ultimately, Jon being a secret Targaryen for his entire life is irrelevant to the show's final narrative. So where does he end up if he doesn't become the king?

After Jon's real identity is revealed to about half the main cast, they all want him to take the throne. But Jon, thanks to some shoddy writing, just repeats that Daenerys is "his queen" over and over again without really considering the prospect of becoming the monarch. That does admittedly change when Daenerys commits a light genocide in King's Landing because she's down to one dragon and mad at the mere idea of the city's fortress, the Red Keep, and Tyrion convinces Jon that, at this point, something should probably be done to keep their new tyrant in check. Jon visits Daenerys in the ruined throne room before she can even sit on the pointy chair she's lusted after for so long, and when she tells him that they'll basically continue overtaking Westeros together, he stabs her in the heart, ending her reign of terror before it properly begins. (Her remaining dragon, Drogon, then torches the Iron Throne itself because he apparently understands symbolism or whatever. That's not that relevant to Jon, but it is absurd, so I wanted to bring it up.)

Jon should, by all accounts, be arrested for murder, and Daenerys' top soldier Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson) would love nothing more than to hold him accountable ... but instead, he's allowed to live. While his brother-nephew Bran inexplicably becomes the King of the Seven Kingdoms for no discernible reason, Jon returns to the North with his loyal direwolf Ghost and his best wildling buddy Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju). Here's the problem: They say that Jon is going back to Castle Black and to the Night's Watch, but because the Night King and his army are dead, the Night's Watch no longer needs to exist. At least Jon gets to hang out with his dog and his friends forever, though. That's a happier ending than most people get on "Game of Thrones."

"Game of Thrones" is streaming on Max now, and available in 4K here.