#literally the only thing he gets from rhaegar targaryen in r+l=j situations are like when he's in the dark his grey eyes look indigo. lmao

[imaginarianisms]

ngl jon being visibly indigenous & looking like eddard/lyanna & on the traditional hero's journey role even tho he very clearly doesn't want it will always be iconic. jon snow u will always be famous.

[joannalannister]

Samyria submitted:

Hey :) I don´t know if I´m asking the right person (and also it is kind of an old case) but what are your thoughts about Jon being a Targaryen?

I  personally don´t like it because it feels forced, obvious (to be honest: I´m not a fan of the Targaryen family - Daenerys included) and way too much like some kind of fanfiction where the Mary-Sue (aka Dany) finally finds her Gary-Stu (aka Jon). I mean…two families equipped with random super powers (in contrast to ALL the other families) and now there is this perfect link between them? That is a bit too much for my taste… Still I would love to hear your opinion. :D

Hi! I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking. 

Are you asking me whether I think Jon Snow is Rhaegar and Lyanna’s son? Because yeah, I believe that, I don’t think “R Plus L Equals J” is too obvious. The fact that so many people figure it out while reading doesn’t make it obvious or forced imo, it just makes me believe that GRRM builds a good foundation when he’s constructing his story, so that when Jon does find out about his true parentage in the books, it will feel very organic and a natural part of the story. I don’t think I have any original thoughts on this theory, but if you’d like to read about it in depth, I recommend the #R plus L equals J tag on @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly‘s blog. 

Or are you asking me whether I believe that Rhaegar and Lyanna got married in the books, making Jon their trueborn son rather than a bastard? 

I don’t believe the theory that Rhaegar and Lyanna got married in the books, because I don’t think Jon Snow’s bastardy is something that’s going to be “solved” so neatly. I don’t think illegitimacy is something to be “solved” at all tbh. The R+L=J reveal is going to be quite tumultuous for Jon, something that will shake him to his core imo, and I think a lot of Jon’s narrative is going to be dedicated to his emotional journey of coming to terms with the idea that he wasn’t Ned Stark’s bastard at all, but Rhaegar’s bastard, and that the woman Jon thought was his aunt is really his mother, and sure, I believe that Lyanna went willingly with Rhaegar, but I don’t think she stayed willingly at the end, because I think this medieval idea of “consent once given is given forever” is bullshit and I think (hope) that GRRM is ripping that idea to shreds, like he does with that idea in Cersei’s narrative. 

That tv show doesn’t have time for emotional journeys, hence the R/L marriage and the complete lack of a nuanced depiction of Rhaegar and Lyanna’s relationship. 

Like, the way that I see Jon’s narrative isn’t that his bastardy is a problem, it’s that he needs to come to terms with it emotionally. And imo Jon has come to terms with the idea that he’s Ned Stark’s bastard in ADWD, cuz Ned was good and honorable and everyone in the North affords Ned a certain respect that sort of counterbalances the stigma in Westeros that bastards are treacherous and awful. So he’s halfway toward accepting who he is. But how much is it going to shake him when he finds out he’s actually Rhaegar Targaryen’s bastard? we can debate Rhaegar’s character until we’re blue in the face, I’m not gonna do that here. Set Rhaegar aside for a moment. The Targaryens murdered Jon’s grandfather and Jon’s uncle. The Targs really fucked up House Stark. 

So when I talk about one of ASOIAF’s themes of the body as a battleground, GRRM is really gonna bring it home in Jon Snow, because he has to deal with such great internal conflict, Stark vs Targaryen, and how can Jon come to terms with what Rhaegar did, and how does that affect Jon’s decisions moving forward. 

Not to mention the whole “I don’t think Jon’s ever going to be fully 100% alive ever again cuz he’ll be a fire zombie” thing complicating this whole situation. 

So yeah, anyways, I think Jon Snow is staying a bastard throughout the series. (Although Robb may have tried to legitimize him, idk wtf is going on with that, idk if that counts, and frankly I don’t give a damn so *shrug emoji*.) 

Is it forced or obvious? I don’t think GRRM’s going to make it feel that way. 

Also, I think the point of Dany’s story is that she is the Targ claimant to the Throne, not Jon, but she gives it all up anyway to save the world. It’s a lot bigger and more meaningful sacrifice on her part if Jon remains a bastard.

In terms of a Mary Sue / Gary Sue … I don’t think I believe in those concepts tbh? Mary Sue is a term loaded with a lot of sexism and misogyny, and Gary Stu is derived from it, instead of the other way around as is typical, because people mostly use the “Mary Sue” concept to criticize female characters for being “too competent” / “too beautiful” / “too admirable” etc. We’ve seen numerous examples of Dany and Jon failing, so what exactly is too competent? What is too beautiful? What makes someone too admirable? 

I don’t believe in the concept of a Mary Sue. I believe in good stories. 

And I think GRRM is more than capable of making Jon and Dany into a damn good story: a compelling, emotionally-satisfying, well-written story with very flawed, very human characters. I think everything from AGOT to ADWD is proof of that. I would literally have to quote the whole book here. 

So, I think the opening argument falls to you here. I’m not gonna do it for you. You would need to make the argument that Jon and/or Dany is a Mary Sue in the books with specific textual examples of how you feel they fit the definition of a Mary Sue if you want me to rebut that idea. 

Regarding the idea that the Starks and the Targaryens have super powers while the other families don’t … idk what to tell you. ASOIAF is an epic fantasy series; people who do magical stuff is par for the course. If the fantasy genre isn’t your thing, idk what to say. 

But what do the Starks have in terms of super powers? Bran has magical powers, Arya can commune with wolves, and Jon is … possibly vacationing in Ghost until a woman from Essos resurrects him. Sansa and Rickon don’t seem to have any magic, or at least nothing that’s manifested itself. (Nor did it seem like Robb did.) 

idk, this doesn’t bother me. The Starks are the heroes. I want to see them do fantastic things, as much as I want to see Wonder Woman go up and over the top. It doesn’t bother me that magical powers aren’t distributed equally among Westerosi society because these powers are supposed to be special. They’re not ordinary. The magic isn’t a mundane part of everyone’s life. The people who use it are not ordinary. Someone like Arya is … exceptional. There could be a hundred Lancels, or a thousand Randylls, but there’s only one person like Arya. Only one person like Bran. Only one Jon. Because I think we’re supposed to realize that being the hero is hard. Stepping up and being the true knight in a world as dark and twisted as Westeros is something very out of the ordinary, something very rare. And the cool thing is that they would do this true knighthood thing even without the magical powers; the magical powers are just author signposts to say, “pay attention to this person” and painting it so much larger than life.  

And idk if the Targaryens really have super powers? Dany has dragons. She has magical creatures, but does she have powers? A miracle happened to her, where she survived Drogo’s pyre, but she’s not fireproof, nor are any other Targs. idk, I read fantasy because I want the miracles, so again idk what to tell you. 

Why does it bother you that the Starks have direwolves and Dany has dragons? 

(If it makes you feel any better, I like to imagine that the prehistoric lions in the Westerlands (basically direlions) – I like to imagine that after the Clegane kennelmaster killed the lioness, Tytos found two cubs and they took them home and he gave them to his kids as pets, but cats being cats, the lion cubs just caused a bunch of problems like knocking down expensive shit and gnawing on people and stuff, until Tytos was like, OK we gotta lock em up, and that’s why they were tame and why they didn’t bite Cersei’s hand off many years later.) 

For me, it always felt like Tyrion has his own superpower: “My mind is my weapon,” and this is why GRRM wrote Tyrion as he did, making him a dwarf to give him a head disproportionately bigger than his body, like he’s someone from a comic book. 

And iif you’re asking me about Jon being in a relationship with Dany, but it being incestuous … eh, it’s fantasy, it’s not real. The incest just adds to the heightened emotions, like some Greek Drama or s/t. If we were reading about the Greek gods on Olympus or s/t with all their incest, would everyone cringe so much? 

Truly, I’m a lot more bothered by all the 13 year old girls being forced to get married in ASOIAF, and the way GRRM writes about how a woman’s “childlike smile” and “girlish body” is “so sexy”. <.<

For Jon/Dany … as I’ve said before, I think ASOIAF is about love, and I think it’s about loving even in the Lovecraftian landscape of the Others, about finding and reveling in our humanity even when it’s under siege in a twisted world of cold and ice. Some people think that’s corny or cheesy or cliche. I think it’s beautiful. If you don’t like it, tho, then you don’t like it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Finally, if you were asking me about Jon/Dany on the show, I’m sorry but I don’t like that show, so the question of whether Jon/Dany are forced or obvious on the show is irrelevant to me.