WARNING: SPOILERS AND SPECUATION AHOY
Back at the end of Season 4, with the series having reached the end of A Storm of Swords and the easier page-to-screen sections of A Song of Ice and Fire, I wrote a piece called “On Jon Snow’s Mother.” In it, I argued that the show had failed so far to successfully develop the subplot involving Ned’s memories of his sister Lyanna and the evolving understanding of who Rhaegar Targaryen was as a person, as we saw him through the eyes of several different characters who remembered him. Part of my argument for this was that the Unsullied among us (who at that point still were very Unsullied) seemed completely baffled whenever someone (usually a book-reader talking to another book-reader) spoke as if Ned Stark was not Jon Snow’s father. I even had the rare odd experience where a fan of the TV show who had gone on to read the books tell me that there was nothing in the text to suggest that Jon Snow’s father was anyone other than Ned Stark.
Well, no, nothing about Jon Snow’s parents is spelled out in the books. But, interestingly enough, it turns out I was wrong about there not being enough hints in the TV show. As this beautifully edited supercut proves, much like in the books, one has to see beyond the scene at hand to put the clues together.
With the quiet proof like this, it seems hard to believe that eventually the show won’t find a way to answer the question of whether or not R+L=J.
Next: Odds and ends: Hodor shills for Samsung, Osha readies an album