After incredible amounts of fan speculation, last season of “Game of Thrones” confirmed the coveted “R+L=J” theory and revealed that Jon Snow, the bastard son of Ned Stark, is, in fact, the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. But Jon himself never learned this information – until last night.
In the Season 8 premiere of “Game of Thrones,” Jon Snow finally learned of his parentage, and the fact that his name is actually Aegon Targaryen. As you might have expected, the news wasn’t received very warmly from the King in the North. I mean, how would you like to know that you’re the true heir to the throne (that you don’t want), your father lied to you your whole life, and you’re having sex with your Aunt? Yeah, not the greatest news.
“If Jon could go back in time and say, ‘Whatever you’re about to say, don’t tell me,’ he would,” Kit Harington said in a new interview with EW. “He’d happily be in ignorance.”
The news was delivered by Samwell Tarly, Jon’s best friend over the course of the series. But still, that didn’t make the revelation any easier for the gruff hero to take.
“He’s not hard to predict, Jon, he doesn’t do many unexpected things,” the actor said. “You mark the particularly tricky scenes that you’re going have to concentrate on and this was one. He finds out such a massive piece of information. Not only does he find out who his mother is but also that he’s related to the person he’s in love with. It’s hard for any actor to play. It’s not a two-hour movie but eight seasons of playing a character who’s finding out.”
Harington also explains why even though it was Sam who told him the truth, physical violence could have broken out, especially if the news wasn’t accurate.
“The key to it is the audience already knows,” he said. “So it’s not a shock to them. With Jon, it’s about what he says, ‘You’re telling me my father lied to me? My father, the most honorable man I’ve known my entire life, you’re saying that?’ For that moment, Samwell is nothing to him. Jon would disown this friend and beat him up if he was trying to lie to him about this. He’s quite threatening: You’re telling me this, you better be fucking right, and if you’re trying to play me — that was the way to play that scene I think. I hope it was.”
“That’s the thing I love about Jon, his purity,” Harington added. “He doesn’t fucking want it. He doesn’t want that fucking information. He doesn’t want to know. He has no ambition for the throne. He’s never wanted that. The end of the world might be coming soon but at least he’s in love with somebody and knows who he is, and then comes this sledgehammer.”
As for John Bradley, who plays Sam in the series, the actor thinks that even though Jon didn’t take the news well, it’s probably best that his most beloved friend was the one to break it to him.
“He didn’t take it well,” Bradley said. “But coming from anybody other than Sam, he would have taken it worse.”