Fanon / A Song of Ice and Fire

• Gendry's full name being "Gendry Waters". Like most smallfolk, Gendry doesn't actually have a last name, and would only have taken the surname "Waters" if his biological father Robert Baratheon had formally recognized him as his bastard. In canon, Robert didn't even know that he existed, and Gendry never learned that he was Robert's son—but most fans refer to him as "Gendry Waters" anyway, with half the tags on Tumblr and fanfiction putting that as his name.
• You can't throw a stone in this fandom without hitting someone who believes Jon Snow is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. The fact that the TV adaptation has confirmed it, while the book saga hasn't yet leaves the whole thing in a grey area between Fanon and Canon. Still, how exactly they conceived him is a matter of debate:
  • The most commonly accepted idea is that Rhaegar fell in love with Lyanna after unmasking her as the Knight of the Laughing Tree and chose her to be the mother of the "third head of the dragon". Lyanna agreed to run away with him because she had feelings for him as well and didn't want to be forced to marry Robert Baratheon, whom she knew would be unfaithful to her.
  • They could have married in front of a heart tree on the Isle of Faces, and the three Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy might have been there to protect the new heir. But of course there are several variations of this.
  • Some fans believe the in-universe story, that he kidnapped and raped her to conceive Jon. There's also the possibility that Lyanna consented at first but then changed her mind and Rhaegar refused to let her go.
  • Very few fans believe that Jon is the name he was born with, and while few fans will have him named Aegon, most will have him born with a Valyrian name. This typically relates back to either a previous Targaryean King, typically Jaehaerys, or a masculine version of Visenya to match his half-siblings naming convention. Jon is typically a name Ned gave him to help hide his identity. Among the fans who do believe that Jon is his actual name, the idea is typically that Lyanna was too weak to name him before passing away.
  • Another strong theory for Jon’s name is Aemon. In top of the thematic reasons spelled out to Jon at the beginning of book two, both Jon and Rhaegar were close with Maester Aemon.
• Related to the popular theory about Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark being Jon's parents, many fans take it as a given that Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree—and that she and Rhaegar first began having their secret affair after King Aerys sent Rhaegar to find and unmask the Knight (Rhaegar claimed that he only found "his" shield, but that could easily have been a lie). Some fans take it a step further and argue that the two secretly got married on the Isle of Faces shortly after meeting during the tourney at Harrenhal (the Isle of Faces is located on the God's Eye, a lake adjacent to Harrenhal). Notably, the Isle of Faces is famous for being dotted with weirwood trees with carved faces (hence its name), and it's established in A Dance with Dragons that Bran Stark's psychic powers can allow him to see through the eyes of weirwood trees at various points in history; assuming the theory is true, this would conveniently allow him to see their marriage ceremony for himself, providing a cozy way to deliver The Reveal to the audience.
• Again, related to the one above is that some believe that Benjen joined the Night's Watch immediately after Robert's Rebellion out of guilt for helping Lyanna run away with Rhaegar, which led to the war.
• Many fans believe that that Ashara Dayne, who is said to have committed suicide shortly after the end of Robert's Rebellion, was actually pregnant at the time with the child of Ned Stark's older brother Brandon. Word of God states that Brandon may have left "a little Snow somewhere", and Barristan Selmy's POV in A Dance with Dragons bitterly mentions that Ashara gave birth to a stillborn daughter after Stark dishonored her. Since Barristan has always spoken of Ned with respect and admiration, the most likely candidate is Brandon, who has quite the reputation as The Casanova.^note  Among the tiny minority of fans who don't believe that Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark are Jon Snow's parents, Brandon Stark and Ashara Dayne are widely considered to be the most likely alternative candidates (although this would have to mean that Ashara's baby was actually a boy, and that he actually survived).
• Edric Dayne is canonically the son of an older brother of Ashara and Arthur Dayne whose name hasn't yet been revealed. Despite this, many fanfics give his father's name as "Allem".
• It's considered practically a given that Young Griff isn't actually Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell's son Aegon VI. Perhaps the most popular alternative theory is that his parents are Illyrio Mopatis and his second wife Serra of Lys. Relatedly: many fans believe that Serra was descended from an exiled member of House Blackfyre, making Griff a scion of the Blackfyres through the female line. This is most frequently held up as a possible explanation for why the Golden Company eventually chooses to support him, despite previously refusing to support Viserys Targaryen (even though both are ostensibly the heir of the Targaryen bloodline); it's well-established that the Golden Company have been staunch Blackfyre loyalists since they were founded by Daemon Blackfyre's half-brother Aegor "Bittersteel" Rivers (they've even been led by at least two Blackfyre pretenders), leading many fans to speculate that they're knowingly passing a Blackfyre off as a Targaryen to gain legitimacy.
• An example of a fanon idea that is usually considered canon, is the notion that Robb Stark made an error by not telling Edmure Tully his plan to trap Tywin by luring him to the Westerlands. This idea was first floated by an article on a fansite and it caught traction but is most certainly not described within the text, by Edmure or others, as a reason for Robb's defeat. Within the books, it's clear that Edmure clearly and repeatedly exceeded his command and Edmure took responsibility for his mishap.
• Other fan theories taken as true in some circles of the fandom include Jeyne Westerling, or perhaps her mother bewitched Robb to fall in love with Jeyne. Or the Jeyne Westerling seen by Jaime Lannister in A Feast for Crows and the one seen by Catelyn in A Storm of Swords are two different persons, as their descriptions don't match. This would lead to the speculations that Jeyne is hiding somewhere else and might even be pregnant. However, current editions of A Feast for Crows remove reference to Jeyne's hips (the source of the theory) entirely, suggesting it was a mistake.
• Since "The Rains of Castamere" was only ever given one verse and a chorus by Martin, there's a fan-written second verse that has become popular in fan renditions of the song. At one point, it was so well-known in the fandom that it was erroneously listed with the official lyrics on the series' Wiki.
  "Oh, hear my call!" the lookout cried, his eyes upon the Vale,
  "I see sunlight upon armor, many riders on the trail!"
  But still, Lord Reyne of Castamere harped on his elegy:
  "No stripling boy, untried by arms, will play lord over me!"
  And so he spoke, and so he spoke, the Lord of Castamere,
  Now rains weep all o'er his walls, with not a soul to hear,
  The lions at the gate had come, to lift his infant heirs on spears...
• Maege Mormont is a lesbian, or her brother Jeor is gay, which is why he went to the wall willingly. Both have children, but that proves nothing, of course.
• Or, that Maege slept with Tormund Giantsbane and he sired her daughters. It's unknown who their father is or if she's married. Tormund did claim to have slept with a she-bear and is called "Husband to Bears".
• Among fans who don't believe that the series will end with either Jon Snow or Daenerys Targaryen on the Iron Throne, it's taken as a Foregone Conclusion that the series will end with the Tyrells on the throne. Thanks to the series' loose basis in the Real Life Wars of the Roses (with the Starks, Lannisters and Targaryens as stand-ins for the Houses of York, Lancaster and Plantagenet), many history buffs in the fandom have latched onto the theory that the Tyrells are meant to be stand-ins for the ultimately victorious House of Tudor. It helps that the family names are vaguely similar, they're the rather treacherous allies of the Lancaster stand-ins, the Reach's position in Westeros corresponds to the position of Wales (where the Tudor line originated) in Britain, and the family's golden rose sigil looks almost identical to the Tudors' famous red and white rose sigil.
• That clever raven of Mormont's is commonly assumed by fans to be one of Bloodraven's many familiars, with his unsettling habit of saying the right thing at the right moment especially with Jon Snow around. The fact that Bloodraven himself was also once Lord Commander of the Night's Watch adds to the connection.
• It's common for fans to take the Targaryen boast of "fire cannot kill a dragon" literally based on Daenerys's birthing her dragons on Drogo's funeral pyre, and it's often employed in fanfiction to prove Jon Snow a true Targaryen in lieu of any sort of documentation or testimony, even though Jon actually burned his hand quite badly in the first novel. Word of God has stated that Daenerys was an exception owing to the magic from the dragon's birth, and that Targaryens don't have a blanket immunity from fire, though they are resistant to high temperatures (Dany likes her bathwater scalding hot). It's not helped by the TV series running with the idea.
• The belief that the people of Yi-Ti have gunpowder. The books mention that some magicians from the East use pyrotechnical powder, and it's well-established that Yi-Ti is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Imperial China—which is where gunpowder was invented. Based on this, many fans believe that the Yi-Tish are the sole culture in the series' universe who use gunpowder in battle.
• Some fan art has taken to depicting Rhaenys (Rhaegar's daughter) as having her father's purple eyes. This is in spite of the fact that she's been explicitly described as looking exactly like her mother, Elia Martell. As a way of giving nod to canon, the common explanation is that her eyes are a very dark shade of purple, making them look like they're black from a distance or in certain lighting.
  • Likewise, there's also fan art depicting her younger brother Aegon VI (aka Young Griff, if you believe the In-Universe claims about his identity) as inheriting their mother's skin tone.
• One of Jon Snow's subordinates is a handsome young man known as Satin, who was previously a prostitute, having been pimped out by his mother as a boy. Fan perception is that Satin is a Camp Gay Pretty Boy who is always swooning over Jon. However, in-text, there's no indication of Satin's sexual preference (a different issue than the gender(s) he was forced to sleep with), and while Satin certainly likes and respects Jon (as a Heroic Bastard, Jon defends fellow "outcasts"), there is not much evidence of this being anything but platonic.
• The Valyrian steel sword "Red Rain" — which is briefly seen in A Feast for Crows in the possession of the Ironborn lord Dunstan Drumm, whose ancestor Hilmar Drumm apparently stole it in a raiding expedition — has perhaps the least backstory of the six authentic Valyrian steel swords that are shown to exist at the start of the series. Despite this, it's generally accepted by fans that it was originally the ancestral blade of House Reyne, whose emblem is a red lion (hence its name).

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