Will A Song of Ice and Fire keep what Game of Thrones did for Jon Snow?

Game of Thrones has handed Jon Snow a sense of belonging that has mostly eluded him, even if he doesn’t know about it yet. Will the books do the same?

Yesterday, our sister site, Winter is Coming, posited that George R.R. Martin had been intending for Jon Snow’s parents to be Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark for quite some time, citing a conversation from 2000 with Martin himself on the subject of annulment. It boils down to this: you know how easy it seemed in Game of Thrones when Sam read the septon’s diary, with the entry that basically said Rhaegar got his annulment and remarried in the same line? It’s actually that easy in the world he’s created.

(Perhaps Martin didn’t want to have his own Henry VIII-style saga take place for three characters who are dead by the time of the books. For one, it would probably make Lyanna look … bad, even though it’s pretty easy to sympathize with Elia Martell.)

So, should the books keep it that way? Dan Selcke, WiC’s editor, and this writer chatted a bit about it — and how it would affect two things: perceptions of Rhaegar as well as Jon Snow’s narrative.

To the first point, Martin will be able to examine Rhaegar from basically both sides, thanks to all the points of view. Even Rhaegar’s article on A Wiki of Ice and Fire points out that there are multiple perspectives given about him in the book, despite (or perhaps because of) his being dead. So, on the one hand, there’s room for Rhaegar to be so nobly devoted to the prophecies he discusses in visions that he would sacrifice even his own marriage … but also room for him to be a man who presumably didn’t even bother to let his wife know that he was ending their marriage, especially when their son Aegon was just a baby.

To the second point, Jon’s sudden legitimacy seems to make his story feel a little hollow. Jon has spent most of the saga not fitting in — not with the Starks, not with the Night’s Watch (getting murdered definitely counts as “not fitting in”) — and all of a sudden, he does fit in, to the point where Rhaegar’s “song of ice and fire” could easily apply to him. Does it suddenly make Jon a bad character? No, but it feels a little too easy.

Then again, if Jon’s still illegitimate, that still could lead to tension with Daenerys in terms of the throne, assuming that the two of them hook up in the books as they do in the show.

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Ultimately, it’s Martin’s story, and presumably at least some of what’s in the show is going to be what’s in the book. What do you think, Game of Thrones and/or A Song of Ice and Fire fans?