Sean Bean Still Has Strong Feelings About Jon Snow

And why wouldn’t he? After all, Ned Stark raised Jon Snow from a cub. It’s only natural for him to have opinions, even if he’s all over the place with them.

SPOILERS AHEAD

As many may remember from last summer, Sean Bean apparently really misses being on Game of Thrones. He took to Vulture, publicly lobbying to be reinstated into the cast. How exactly? A vision? A ghost? A flashback? We’ll never know, since Benioff and Weiss didn’t take him up on it. But what caught everyone’s attention at the time wasn’t that he wanted back on. After all, who among the dead wouldn’t want to come back to life? What caught everyone’s attention was why.

Well, he wanted to be the one to explain to the world about R+L=J, the widely accepted fan theory that identifies Jon Snow’s true parents (last chance to get off, Unsullied). And who better to explain the show’s biggest secret than the man who first got you to turn on the show because it was his face on the side of the bus?

But even though Benioff and Weiss did not take to Bean’s idea, they’re been dropping big circular hints about the truth behind Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark—see Littlefinger’s speech about the Year of the False Spring. And Sean Bean, for one, is delighted to hear it. Here’s what he told Vulture during the Turner upfronts this week:

“He’s not my child. He isn’t. That’s what I suspected all along.”

Is Bean concerned about Jon learning the news from someone other than himself? After all, Ned Stark may not be Jon’s bio-dad, but I think we can tell from all Jon Snow’s choices this season—from cutting off Janos’ head himself to resisting Melisandre’s temptations to taking being called as honorable as Ned as a complement—that Ned Stark is, emotionally at least, Jon Snow’s true father.

And Bean is concerned! “Probably a bit psychologically confused, I would imagine! I think that’s probably an interesting journey for Jon Snow as a character and for [Kit Harington] as the actor. He’s been very fortunate in being one of the characters that had a very meaty, substantial, very complex story to be able to discover for himself. He’s been lucky to survive!”

It’s true. We should worry for Jon—how is he going to learn the news, and would he take it well coming from someone who is not Ned? Not that there’s much chance of the show getting there anytime this season. But when (and if) Jon learns his entire life has been a lie, and he’s really half Targaryen? It will either drive him to a suicidal depression, or finally be the thing that gets him to break his oath to the Night’s Watch and head south to rule Westeros, as is his birthright.

But first, the whole “Rhaegar raped and kidnapped Lyanna” version of the story is going to have to be put to bed, and not just with a long knowing silence from Littlefinger.

• Published on 05/15/2015 at 3:00 PM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:04 PM CDT