FULL SPOILERS FOR GAME OF THRONES THROUGHOUT
As this week’s episode of Game of Thrones – the aptly titled “Oathbreaker” (our full review here) – began, many fans were wondering just where Bran Stark and the Three-Eyed Raven would warg to next.
It is clear that throughout his training, Bran will be visiting integral parts of his family’s history and heritage, but the trip to the Tower of Joy is unquestionably one of the most vital.
Not only did the scene make for fantastic fan service, but also for helping to support one of the largest theories in all of the Seven Kingdoms. Those unfamiliar with George R.R. Martin’s source texts might have found the scene a little confusing, or only absorbed a fraction of its meaning, but fear not. We are here to explain all…
The flashback to the Tower of Joy serves as a pivotal point in all that’s to come in Westeros. In the books, Ned Stark (Bran’s father) arrives at the tower in the aftermath of Robert Baratheon’s rebellion against the Targaryens. Armed with six companions – Howland Reed, Lord Willam Dustin, Ethan Glover, Martyn Cassel, Theo Wull, and Ser Mark Roswell – he is met by three knights: Lord Commander Gerold Hightower, Ser Arthur Dayne, and Ser Oswell Whent.
Now Hightower is absent from the sequence in the show, but the dramatic effect and reasonings behind the actions remain in tact: Ned is there to free his sister Lyanna Stark from the grasp of Rhaegar Targaryen who has supposedly “kidnapped” her.
In “A Game of Thrones”, Ned has a significant dream. A dream “of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood.” It is widely believed that the “bed of blood” is reflective of Lyanna in childbirth which is not going very well. Dayne and Whent are stationed outside the tower and refuse Ned entry rights. They are protecting Lyanna’s privacy whilst she is in labour.
There’s a very common mathematical equation in GoT lore and it goes like this: R + L = J. Rhaegar Targaryen + Lyanna Stark = Jon Snow. This parentage would completely adhere to the collective name of Martin’s novels – “A Song of Ice and Fire”.
The reason we only visit the Tower of Joy in flashback is because following the battle, a piercing scream is heard. Ned finds his sister laying in a pool of blood. She says “promise me Ned” before she passes. That’s all. We don’t ever find out what the promise actually is, but it is presumed that it is to keep Jon’s true birthright a secret. After the exchange, Ned destroys the tower.
Ned returns with Jon to Winterfell and alludes that the boy is his bastard son; that he was unfaithful to his wife Catelyn. If you revisit the earliest of GoT episodes, you’ll notice that Catelyn is remarkably cold towards Jon, meaning she fully believes he is the by-product of her husband’s illicit affairs.
So you are probably wondering why Ned never told Jon or indeed anyone who his real parents where? Well it is believed that because he was the son of one of the kingdom’s core enemies, should his true identity be revealed, he would have been executed in the same manner as how “The Mountain” terminated Rhaegar’s other son Aegon by smashing his head to a pulp. Nice.
Jon’s parentage is extremely important for a number of reasons. Firstly, if he is part Targaryen, that would provide him a legitimacy to the Iron Throne. It would be difficult for him to prove this however as all of those with core influence have now passed. Rhaegar, Lyanna, Ned, Dayne, even Robert…
However, one principal member of that fateful day remains: Reed. As previously mentioned, he does not feature in the scene on the show, nor has he ever appeared in HBO’s drama, but his children have, and they just so happen to be working alongside Bran. Son and daughter Jojen and Meera have been helping the young warg throughout and are a primary puzzle piece to the developments with the Three-Eyed Raven.
Should this theory be accurate, Jon would have a level of nobility in Westeros that could see the reformation of the Targaryen house. Daenerys, potentially Tyrion (read our theory here) and he could be the significant representation of the three-headed dragon and the building blocks for an uprising.
In Season 5, Varys makes it very clear that he has zero faith in the current rule, which is House Baratheon, or House Lannister by default / prolonged incest. He tells Tyrion that the people need a strong candidate that they could rally behind. At the time, he is clearly talking about Dany and her dragons. During this season she had a deep connection with the people of Meereen and the New World; something she very much doesn’t now.
But now we have Jon Snow: the man from beyond the grave. In supernatural terms, he is fundamentally a God. The masses would most certainly follow a Targaryen-blooded, death-cheating leader all the way to the Red Keep.
Equally, Jon is unquestionably the most important asset in the ongoing fight against the White Walkers. If he is part Targaryen, that means he carries Kingsblood in his veins. Melisandre’s witchcraft is all-the-more potent if she has access to a royal bloodline.
To dip back into the books, Rhaegar is a firm believer in a prophecy which states that a “prince was promised”. What this means is that a mythical leader will arrive and usher the world from darkness; an elaborate way of explaining the ending of The Long Night. Jon Snow is such a prince.
Much of Rhaegar’s character progressions throughout are a means of bringing this prophecy into being, which is why many fans believe he sort after Lyanna Stark to have a child. The prophecy concluded by saying the prince will have “a song of ice and fire”.
Throughout the books, the notion is that the Targaryens – including Rhaegar – were savages. King Robert polarised public perception of the house during the build-up to his rebellion and dubbed Rhaegar as a rapist and murderer. What the show is doing so subtly is suggesting that actually Rhaegar was a kind and thoughtful leader.
Despite breaking his vows to wife Elia Martell and having a bastard (seriously, virtually everyone who populates Westeros is one…), he clearly loved and cared for Lyanna, and her well-being. Barristan Selmy supports this theory too by telling Dany that her elder brother was humble, accommodating and passionate about many things including playing music.
Plus during Bran’s last warg flashback in “Home”, the Three-Eyed Raven and he see young Lyanna training in the grounds of Winterfell. She is strong, technical and able-handed with a sword. Chances are she would unlikely grow up to be a woman who was unable to care for and defend herself, therefore it seems wrong to believe that Rhaegar “kidnapped and raped” her.
It seems as though showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are giving audiences connecting dots to prove that R plus L really does equal J, and that these very important characters have dense backstories which have entirely rendered their journey.
Let us know what you think of the Tower of Joy sequence and it’s significance in the comment section below.
