Speculation: On The Parentage of Certain Characters

Over on Buzzfeed, bless their hearts, someone has run across a certain old fan theory and run it up the flagpole. (Don’t click that unless you want spoilers!)

In some ways, I’m grateful. I made the discovery this summer that TV Show Only fans had completely missed a certain core mystery of the series. That’s not their fault. Game of Thrones has a major problem facing them if certain theories are correct, because they have not been able to translate them from page to screen. So perhaps having a viral website to help things along will not be remiss.

But is Buzzfeed’s theory correct? We’ll discuss it below. Serious book speculation and spoilers ahead.

So Book Readers all know about Jon Snow’s parentage, which the internet shorthands to R+L=J. It’s enough of a given that even Sean Bean has come out and declared obviously he’s not the father. This was when I realized how many TV Show Watchers had completely lost the thread of this mystery, due to the way the show had chosen to edit the story to screen. (I wrote about it here.)

But that’s not the theory Buzzfeed wandered across. They wandered across one that a little more far fetched. I’m talking about–to borrow the same parlance–MK+Jo=T.

When I was first reading the books back in the late ’90s and early aughts, this theory was as big as the one surrounding Jon’s parentage. The clues are just as sporadically sprinkled but can be put together in the same way. Tywin’s declaring that he doesn’t think Tyrion is his son, but he can’t prove it. (Where is DNA testing when you need it?) The suggestions Mad King Aerys lusted after Tywin’s wife Joanna, including reports he “took liberties” at the bedding ceremony when she married Tywin. There are also suggestions that Aerys’ final break with reality came when Joanna died.

But mostly, this theory hinges on the book’s description of Tyrion, which include a “shock of white blonde hair” and mismatched eyes–one green like his siblings, but one that is black or very dark purple in certain lights. That’s why, unlike R+L=J, I find I don’t subscribe to it the way I used to. Because if that was really important, they would have had to carry that over to the TV show. Clearly, as we can see above, they didn’t.

Now, it’s known that Dinklage had many stipulations when he was originally cast, including that he didn’t want any of your usual fantasy dwarf stereotypes. This is why he didn’t have a beard in the first season, for instance. So perhaps the costume and wig designers felt they couldn’t do things like mismatched eyes. (They do lighten his hair, but it’s still darker than both Cersei and Jaime’s) But if this had actually been important, I think Martin and the producers might have insisted on finding a way to get it on screen. Though there hasn’t been much on R=L=J on screen, there was at least a few gestures towards it in the first season. There have been zero gestures towards the MK+Jo=T on screen. Zero.

Why on earth would such a thing matter? Because there are three dragons. (In the book, the phrase “The Dragon has three heads” is uttered a fair bit.) Three dragons means riders needed. If Dany is one, and R=L=J makes Jon two, then MK=Jo=T makes Tyrion three. Unlike Jon, at least Tyrion and Dany and the dragons are on the same continent.

But that’s something of a standard hero fantasy trope to have our big three turn out to ride dragons. And if there’s one thing we all know about A Song of Ice and Fire, it’s the Martin is all about turning those tropes on their heads.If the trope is that the hero is always able to survive no matter what the odds, then in Marton’s world, the hero dies. If the trope is that the three heroes will come together and ride the three dragons, then….yeah. Not gonna happen.

Maybe I’ll turn out to be wrong. But right now I’m putting this theory in the “Too far fetched/Busted” category. Feel free to disagree with me in the comments.

• Published on 09/16/2014 at 9:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 12:40 PM CDT