'Game of Thrones' Season 6 Finale: What Did Lyanna Stark Whisper Right Before She Died
(Editor's note: Major Game of Thrones season six spoilers ahead.)
The season six finale of Game of Thrones aired Sunday night — and the epically long "The Winds of Winter" seemed to leave viewers with even more questions than it answered. But one mystery the show came tantalizingly close to solving was the question of Jon Snow's parentage — but we didn't learn that answer, all thanks to a whisper.
During the finale, Bran (our third favorite living Stark) wargs his way back in time to watch his father, Ned Stark, rescuing his sister Lyanna from the clutches of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen. But when Ned makes his way up to the tower where his sister is being held, he finds that she's weak and about to die — and she's just given birth to a baby.
All of this seems to confirm the R+L=J theory: That Jon isn't actually Ned's son but his nephew, the illegitimate child of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. That would make him, along with Daenarys, one of the last living members of the Targaryen family, and would, in theory, give him a claim to the Iron Throne. And the scene jumps straight from Lyanna's baby to present-day Jon Snow — which seems to further imply the baby born in the tower grows up to be our favorite bastard.
The only hiccup in this neat explanation is there's just one thing in the scene we don't quite get to see. As time-traveling Bran looks on, Lyanna pulls Ned in and implores that he protect her newborn baby — and then she whispers something neither Bran nor the audience can hear.
Is her secret just the fact of Jon's heritage — the last piece of the puzzle that would confirm that Ned isn't actually Jon's father? Or is it some deeper, more complicating secret? And if it is, then is there anyone alive in Westeros who knows what Lyanna actually said to Ned with her dying breath?
The internet, of course, is obsessed with finding the answer — and disappointed we don't have it yet.
And then there's this, well, long-shot theory...
But jokes aside, we know that Ned, before his death, promised to tell Jon the story of his birth and reveal the identity of his mother. With Ned long gone, and fewer and fewer characters around who might be able to explain things to him, the burden may be on Bran to solve the mystery once and for all — and then tell Jon (and all of us) the truth.
Hopefully he won't whisper when he does.
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