Spoilers follow for “Winterfell,” the season eight premiere of Game of Thrones. For the past two years, both the readers of George R.R. Martin’s books and fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones have concentrated on a revelation about one of the series’ major characters: Jon Snow. Jon Snow isn’t who he thinks he is. Jon Snow is actually half Targaryen, the oldest son of Daenerys’s oldest brother. And in Game of Thrones’ season eight premiere, “Winterfell,” the show capitalized on this family history with a scene in which Jon Snow rides one of Dany’s two remaining dragons. Dany and Jon take a dragon ride through the North — he on Rhaegal, she on Drogon — swooping through rocky valleys and ravines. Dany laughs at Jon’s struggle to steer and hold on; he’s not as adept at dragon-riding as she is. But when they finally land, they’re both thrilled. And then Dany asks Jon if they could (not that) hypothetically go behind an icy waterfall and keep each other warm. Given the CGI and the randy tone of the scene, your mileage may vary on how cool — or ridiculous — this moment actually was. But as it pertains to the Game of Thrones’ story at large, it’s a very important moment pertaining to Jon Snow’s identity, something the show has been setting up for the past couple of seasons. Here’s why that dragon ride matters. Game of Thrones laid the groundwork for this scene by making Daenerys’s dragons a clue about Jon’s parentage When Game of Thrones began — and before that, in Martin’s source novels — Jon Snow was introduced as Ned Stark’s bastard son. But in both versions, that introduction was followed by clues and foreshadowing that suggested Jon isn’t who we or he thinks he is. The show was ultimately a little heavier with the hints, and understandably so, as it eventually rocketed ahead of the books it’s based on, beginning to diverge from its source material in season four. One of the show’s huge clues regarding Jon’s true parentage came in Game of Thrones’ season six finale when, during one of Bran’s flashbacks, we saw Ned Stark as a much younger man, fighting his way into the Tower of Joy past a number of members of the Kingsguard. He’s storming the tower in search of his sister Lyanna Stark, who was allegedly abducted by Rhaegar Targaryen. But instead, he finds that his sister has just given birth to a baby, presumably Rhaegar’s, and has lost a lot of blood. She’s dying and asks Ned to keep the baby safe. The implication is that Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen had a child, an heir to the Iron Throne. Rhaegar was the eldest son of the mad king King Aerys II Targaryen, making Rhaegar next in the line of succession (and Daenerys and Viserys’s older brother). Rhaegar’s child would be the true heir, again because of succession. But at this point, Ned and Bran are the only characters on the show who know this child exists, and only Ned and the audience know it’s Jon Snow. Game of Thrones has since called back to that reveal in a couple of instances, such as this season seven scene at Dragonstone, from the episode “Eastwatch,” when Jon meets Drogon, Daenerys’s main dragon: The surprise here is that Jon isn’t cremated on the spot. Daenerys considers her dragons her children. They are very protective of her and don’t take kindly to outsiders or to anyone they feel might threaten Daenerys or their relationship with Daenerys. For example, here’s Kraznys mo Nakloz having trouble handling Drogon in the season three episode “And Now His Watch Has Ended,” and getting roasted after Daenerys “trades” Drogon for the Unsullied: That Jon doesn’t meet the same fate as Nakloz signals that Daenerys likes him and, by extension, that Drogon likes him. But it also suggests that he has Targaryen blood, since Targaryens share an affinity for and relationship with dragons. Game of Thrones fully confirmed Jon’s parentage in its season seven finale, when both Sam and Bran learned that Rhaegar and Lyanna had been married in secret, got pregnant with Jon, and that Ned adopted Jon as his “bastard” to keep him safe during the war in which people wanted to kill off the Targaryen bloodline. Jon’s real name is Aegon Targaryen. So in the season eight premiere, Jon being able to go out for a joy ride on Rhaegal (who happens to be named after his father — Daenerys’s brother) is a manifestation of his Targaryen blood. Jon riding the dragon sets up the impending White Walker clash and serves as a callback to a prophecy from the books In the books and on the show, a prophecy called “The Prince/Princess That Was Promised” foretells of a someone of royal blood whose destiny is to save the world from the Long Night, a.k.a. when the White Walkers show up and kill everyone. Melisandre refers to the prophecy when she visits Daenerys at Dragonstone in season seven, whereupon Missandei notes that the translation from High Valyrian actually makes gender ambiguous — the savior could be a prince or a princess. Melisandre says that Daenerys and Jon Snow are crucial to the prophecy: “Prophecies are dangerous things,” Melisandre intones. “I believe you have a role to play — as does another the King of North, Jon Snow.” Martin’s books are more comprehensive about the promised prince or princess. When Daenerys visits the House of the Undying in A Clash of Kings, she has a vision in which her brother Rhaegar says a lot of seemingly nonsensical things to her. “He is the prince that was promised,” Rhaegar says, “And his is the song of ice and fire.” This could be interpreted to refer to Jon Snow being the child of a Targaryen (fire) and a Stark (ice). Rhaegar also tells Daenerys that “the dragon has three heads.” A popular fan theory surrounding this statement is that since Daenerys has three dragons, and that the Targaryen sigil is a three-headed dragon, there would ostensibly be three dragon riders. With Jon Snow being able to ride a dragon, it seems like this prophecy is being partly fulfilled. However, this theory was established before the Night King killed and resurrected Daenerys’s dragon Viserion in season seven. That throws a wrench into the three dragon riders theory. While the Prince/Princess and Dragon Rider prophecies are related, it might be better for now to consider them separate entities with nifty parallels, since Game of Thrones the TV show has jumped ahead of the books, timeline-wise. What we do know is that Jon is able to ride a dragon, something that no one except Daenerys has previously been able to do, and that it further proves his Targaryen blood. If he gets more dragon-riding practice, he’ll presumably be able to ride Rhaegal into battle against the White Walkers — possibly making good on Melisandre’s hunch that to defeat the White Walkers, Jon and Daenerys will need to join forces. Perhaps the biggest unanswered question currently: Why isn’t Daenerys a little more aware of what it means that Jon is able to ride a dragon? And will she allow him to ride the dragon after he tells her he’s actually Targaryen and the rightful heir to the Iron Throne?<doc-sep>We were also reminded during the premiere that Daenerys has got quite a temper, particularly when it comes to people questioning her authority as queen. She has dragon fire for those who won’t bend the knee, and she’s not afraid to use it (see: Sam Tarly’s brother, father). Jon’s parentage threatens Daenerys and what has fueled her throughout the show: the unwavering belief that she’s the rightful heir to the Iron Throne.<doc-sep>
This is the kind of revisionist history that has the power to change the future; Jon is Jon, however, and so, taking in the complicating truth, he focuses on the complicated lie. “My father was the most honorable man I ever met,” he tells Sam, glowering, his warm breath billowing against the chill of the crypt. “You’re saying he lied to me all my life?” In one way, it’s a strange reaction to the news that Jon is, you know, king of the Andals and the First Men, sixth of his name, the nephew of his brand-new girlfriend, etc. For Jon, though, it’s entirely fitting. In a show that has found most of its primary players following sweeping arcs and undergoing major transformations, Jon’s circumstances have changed while his character, comparatively, has not: Jon was then, and is now, a Good Guy. He tells the truth, even when the truth in question is inconvenient, and this has been not only a reliable fact within an otherwise unsteady universe, but also an extension of his relationship to Ned. (Tyrion to Jon last season, when the latter’s blunt honesty nearly compromises the new allies’ ability to build a coalition to fight the encroaching White Walkers: “Have you ever considered learning how to lie, every now and then? Just a bit?” It’s a callback to the brand of honesty that ended up costing Ned, several seasons ago, his life.) Read: The Atlantic’s roundtable discussion of the ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8 premiere Sam’s news, in that sense, is a plot point that doubles as a crushing irony. Here is a character who has understood himself to be a teller of truths, learning that his whole existence has been, in some sense, a lie. And, coming as it does—within an episode that is mostly a series of scene-settings for future battles—the destabilizing discovery offers its own kind of resolution. Game of Thrones, after all, has long been interested in lies: as architectural facts, as ruptures that are capable of upending the social order. Lies, here, alter history. Joffrey, cruel and petty, lied about the attack on Mycah, and changed, with his selfishness, the path of everything that would follow. Cersei lied about joining the alliance to fight the Night King, and about so much else. Tyrion lied. Littlefinger lied. Arya lied. The full consequences of those untruths—the macrocosmic results of the microcosmic manipulations—remain, as yet, unclear. But now, as the story’s end draws closer, here is another lie to add to the mix: Ned’s lie about Jon. Ned told this lie as a matter of honor—to fulfill his promise to his sister, and to protect a baby whose claim to the Iron Throne would put his life in mortal danger—but, as all lies will, it irreparably changed the course of things. The lie Ned told allowed for a different mistruth to take root among the weirwood trees: the myth that Rhaegar Targaryen had kidnapped Lyanna Stark. It was a misunderstanding that instigated an Iliad-esque cascade of rivalries, which escalated into wars and resolved into the great war that is soon to be fought. The tragedy lurking at the heart of the struggle that has steadily spread across the Known World isn’t merely the way lies can shift reality—that has been clear from the outset—but also the idea that simple confusion, solidified as myth, can do the same. The history books were wrong. The truths themselves had lied. And here is Jon Snow, the living embodiment of the mistake.