OK, so here’s my thing. The show did confirm that Lyanna gave birth to a son in the Tower of Joy. But it didn’t technically confirm that the child was Rhaegar’s.
Hair color is an extremely important indicator of Paternity in Martin’s world. So if R + L = J, Why does Jon Snow have black hair?
Wouldn’t that make him more likely Robert’s? But then why would she think he would kill him? Unless it was Rhaegar they were protecting?
What if someone else died in Rhaegar’s super special armour? (Remember Tywin and Renly in the battle of King’sLanding?)
Lyanna "It wasn’t Rhaegar in that armour, but someone else. His name is whisper.
Maybe it was Howland Reed’s child? And she didn’t want Robert to kill Howland? Who had just saved Ned’s life? Remember Jojen’s story about the mystery knight? And how shocked he was that the Stark kids hadn’t heard the story?
I dunno. All I know is, that ain’t Targaryen hair on that boy’s head.
You know who DOES have Targaryen hair? Cersei and Jamie. And Cersei just fulfilled Mad King Aegon’s dream. Maybe Tywin had no children at all.
And even the absolute claim in case of the Baratheons is not quite believable in the books (after all, if it’s an iron rule, Robert should have been convinced that Cersei had cheated on him after his first-born showed those golden locks) and it’s subverted in the show - Stannis’ daughter does not have black hair, for example.
Indeed. It may a good reason why they married brother to sister all those years, because marrying to someone else would have tainted the signature features.
There is nothing to suggest that genetics is any different in Westeros. Jon Arryn thought it was an ironclad case. That doesn’t mean it actually was. He was a dude in a medieval society, he might have just ignorantly assumed it to be so.
Lyanna was being protected by kingsguard as she gave birth. There’s no reason for them to protect Robert the usurper’s bastard, but there’s a pretty huge reason for them to protect Rhaegar’s child.
This should really be titled “GoT” instead of “ASoIaF”, since Ice and Fire is really the book series. The show has not, to my knowledge, embraced the Song and Fire title.
I imagine the book and show will both make it clearer that Rhaegar is the father, even though the showrunners have already clarified that it is true.
I think lip-readers have said that Lyanna told Ned that the child’s name is either “Jaeharys” or “Aemon”, both which give strong indication he is Targaryen.
Targaryens who married other families did not all look Targaryenish, specially families with strong blood like the Starks. Most of them kept the silver hair and violet eyes because they kept it in the family, but it was not that rare to have some darker shades.
[In the show…] No, they don’t. Targaryen hair is “silver.” It is depicted and referenced as highly distinctive and unusual. There are no references to anyone not named Targaryen with this hair, and conversely the references to “golden” Lannister hair (for example Jaime to Brienne, in “Two Swords” I think) are clearly about a more widespread, ‘natural’ color, in the show world as well as the real one.
I should say, there are some shots in the show where Daenerys’ hair doesn’t look that different than other blondish characters (the Essosi sun, I guess). But every time the characters talk about hair color, without exception, they are consistent with the idea than Targaryen hair is absolutely distinctive.
Cute, but when one data point conflicts with all the others, it is natural to ask why. That’s why, in my first comment on the matter, linked above, I don’t say Jon can’t be Rhaegar’s biological son; I say that if he is, people in both that world and this would presumably be asking how that can be. An answer of “I guess the world just doesn’t work the way we thought it did” may be the best we can do with a real-world scientific question, but it’s pretty unsatisfying in a work of narrative fantasy.
What “all others”? If you are going by the show we only have Dany and Viserys and one brief flashback to the mad king (who could just be old enough to have white hair) to go by. There are not enough data points to make any kind of theory.
There are four Targaryens depicted (also Aemon, also old), and more importantly there are the dialogue references to the signification of hair color in general (as the OP mentions), and the distinction of Targaryen hair in particular.
Is this really the first you’ve heard of this? I didn’t make it up; I thought it was as well established (narratively, if not dramatically) as Dany’s imperviousness to fire.
Indeed. And, of course, we have the books themselves. Simply ignoring them on this basis seems completely absurd.
In addition, there is definitely in the books, but maybe in the show as well, discussions about the Targaryens married brother and sister to keep the blood lines pure. Not that much of a leap to suggest that marrying outside of Targaryen family lines may result in some telling different coloring.