It’s just got to happen, right? I mean, all the signs are pointing towards Jon Snow taking the throne, ever since the first episode he’s been on an unwavering trajectory that will take him there.
And though I know Game of Thrones loves nothing more than pulling the rug from under your feet – they’ve already killed him off once, and he came back – they’re not going to kill him again (can he even be killed?). Jon (the undead) is going to take on the army (of the dead) and succeed.
Also, it’s not just called Game of Thrones, it’s called A Song of Ice and Fire, which is literally our Jon. He’s from the North, he’s a Stark at heart, he was leader of the Night’s Watch, and he was the first person to befriend the Wildlings. You can’t get more icy. Also, he is fire – his not-so-secret identity is that of a Targaryen, the family with badass fire-breathing dragons, and the family who’ve ruled the Seven Kingdoms for three centuries. He’s the rightful heir, and we can’t have an unsatisfactory ending now, can we?
Also, have you ever wondered whether the song of ice and fire the series takes its name from is an actual song? Jon’s real dad, Rhaegar Targaryen, was known to be an amazing musician, playing songs on his silver harp which would leave ‘every woman in the hall weeping’.
When Jon – or, rather, Aegon Targaryen – was born, Rhaegar was asked by his nurse whether he would make a song for the newborn, which we see through a vision Daenerys has.
Rhaegar replies:
He has a song. He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.
It’s also noted that Rhaegar’s harp is down in the crypts of Winterfell with his beloved Lyanna Stark. Could it be, therefore, the song is there too, written in scrolls, proving the prophecy and proving Jon’s true lineage once and for all?
And yes, Gendry is still in the running for rightful heir. He is (whisper it) the unacknowledged bastard son of King Robert Baratheon after all, and we don’t actually know who his mother is – just that she had blonde hair.
But it’s not very likely that the unacknowledged bastard son of someone who died in the first season is going to take the throne.
It’s going to be Jon (though, granted, many of his family members also died in the first season), because he thought he was a bastard, but in reality is actually the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark who did get married. Gendry is nothing more than a red herring who pops up every now and again.
In a recent interview with Variety, the actor behind Jon, Kit Harington, pretty much gave away how his characters makes it to the very end:
I was there the whole time this year. I felt a bit like people were coming in and out, and Jon Snow was just fucking there the whole time.
It sounds like an arduous shoot to say the least. Though they’re making one of the most epic shows of all time, so they can’t really complain.
This quote stood out to me though. Earlier in the interview, Kit explains how he watched Peter Dinklage, who plays Tyrion Lannister, shoot his last scene. So how many other characters did he witness in their final moments, perhaps suggesting they’ve fallen by the wayside before Jon takes the throne?
As he says – Jon Snow was there the whole time. He may as well as have said he’s alive the whole time. It’s happening.
Game of Thrones has done its best to subvert our expectations of fantasy dramas – beloved characters die, romances don’t always work out, there’s fair bit of incest, sons kill fathers and vice versa etc etc, so it wouldn’t be unexpected to have an subversive final ending. The showrunners have said they took inspiration from The Sopranos and Breaking Bad when deciding how to end GoT, so we could be in store for a divisive ending.
However, while it could be unexpected to hand the victory to the Night King and the White Walkers, wouldn’t the most subversive thing to do – after a show full of good guys dying and bad guys winning – to have the rightful person, the heir to the throne, be victorious?
If Jon does take the throne, it’ll also subvert his own expectations. He is, after all, an oathbreaker and – in his eyes – a bastard, so doesn’t believe he can be ruler anyway. And while he reluctantly took the title of King in the North, he’s remained the underdog, albeit a so far successful underdog, having won the Battle of the Bastards.
Another reason Jon Snow is going to take the throne is the prophecy of Azor Ahai. Melisandre, the Red Witch, is a big believer in this, and though her initial support of Stannis Baratheon was misplaced, the description she gives of the prophecy is Jon all over.
She says:
When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone.
While Thoros of Myr puts it this way:
According to prophecy, our champion will be reborn to wake dragons from stone and reforge the great sword Lightbringer that defeated the darkness those thousands of years ago. If the old tales are true, a terrible weapon forged with a loving wife’s heart.
Reborn? A mega-sword? Dragons? Well Jon’s definitely done one of those things and got one other, and he’s cosying up to Dany and her dragons pretty well thus far too…
Prophecies aside, as we’ve seen in previous seasons Jon is the man to bring people together – the Night’s Watch and the Wildlings, for example. Although, admittedly, the first time he tried that he got killed. But he was resurrected and did it anyway!
He’s also, for the first time since his father’s and Lyanna Stark’s secret union, the first person to bring the Targaryens and Starks together, with an added Lannister ally.
He’s got his allies and he’s got his enemies, he’s just waiting for the fight now. I’ve convinced myself at least.
Season 8 of Game of Thrones will air in the US on HBO on April 14 and Sky Atlantic early April 15 morning in the UK.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.