Will The Winds Of Winter Change Game Of Thrones Ending For The ...

Once upon a time, Jon Connington was Lord of Griffin’s Roost and the final Hand of Aerys II (the Mad King). When Tyrion Lannister stumbles upon him in his travels through Essos in A Dance with Dragons, Connington lives a life of exile and disguise, traveling under the alias of “Griff” with his son “Young Griff.” However, it’s eventually revealed that Young Griff is not his child, but a lad Connington is raising to think he’s a royal—Prince Rhaegar’s youngest son by Elia Martell to be exact. Thus Aegon VI.

In other words, the lad is another nephew of Daenerys Targaryen, as well as Jon Snow’s actual older brother. And given the patriarchal laws of Westeros established by the Dance of the Dragons civil war roughly 200 years before this story began (and the basis of House of the Dragon), young Aegon would have a better claim to the Iron Throne than Daenerys by rights of being a male heir descended from King Aerys II’s eldest son.

This is a dramatic game-changer… if it were true. While this is entirely speculation by fans, there is good reason to believe this young Aegon is not the son of Rhaegar but actually a descendant of the Blackfyre line, an off-shoot of the Targaryen family derived from Prince Daemon Blackfyre I, the bastard son of King Aegon IV Targaryen who rose up and caused a civil war about a hundred years before the events of Game of Thrones.

It’s easy to see why Connington and Aegon were cut from the series. This is a whole new plot thread introduced late in the story, and one that could cause it to expand exponentially. It would make getting to an ending that much more difficult… which perhaps explains why Martin has been working on the newest book for over a decade.

Consider this: Lord Varys was never only about doing what was right by the realm in the earliest seasons of the show or in the novels. He conspired with Pentoshi merchant Illyrio Mopatis in the first book/season to undermine Robert Baratheon and to murder Daenerys Targaryen—and only after they had previously convinced her clearly inadequate brother Viserys to marry Dany off to the Dothraki. In retrospect, selling Dany to the Horse Lords might’ve been an attempt to move her and her hapless brother out of the way, with both Varys and Illyrio failing to predict her strong leadership qualities or the birth of her dragons. But to what end?

It’s strongly hinted at in the books that Varys himself could be descended from the Blackfyre family line. This would explain why a wizard would geld him for a blood magic ritual—as Melisandre says there’s power in king’s blood—as well as why he shaves his head (he may not be naturally bald but hiding his silvery Targaryen hair). And if Varys is a Blackfyre, young Aegon may be his nephew and the son of Illyrio Mopatis. The Pentoshi merchant speaks wistfully to Tyrion on the page of his lost wife who might’ve been Varys’ sister.