Everything you need to know about Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark on 'Game of Thrones' (2024)

The Game of Thrones Season 7 finale finally introduced us to Jon Snow's -- excuse me, Aegon Targaryen's parents, Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark.

The couple lived and died before the events of Season 1, episode 1, but we've picked up enough pieces over the course of the series to create a compelling picture of the people who birthed the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms.

A wonderful thing Game of Thrones did, particularly in its early seasons, was to assume an intelligent audience. We wouldn't be up to our eyes in Reddit theories in 2017 if we hadn't fallen for the characters and world of Westeros in 2011 (or earlier, for book readers) and decided to do some research to stick with it.

With Jon Snow at the center of Westeros' greatest war and uniquely qualified to sit on the throne, let's take a closer look at the duo who brought him into this world and changed the course of Westerosi history forever.

Back in the day, when Westeros wasn't in a constant state of open warfare, Aerys Targaryen (the erstwhile Mad King) was in power, and his son Rhaegar married in a strategic alliance to Elia Martell of Dorne. You'll remember Elia's name for how many times her brother Oberyn repeated it in Season 4; Elia was murdered by the Mountain, as were her children. But before that, the powerful royals were married, amicably if not lovingly, and had a daughter and son together.

Meanwhile, up North, Ned Stark's sister Lyanna was set to marry his best friend Robert, promising the kind of love and joy that no Northerner has known in the entirety of Game of Thrones. It was during that time that the Starks visited Harrenhal for a tourney in which Rhaegar competed against Ser Barristan Selmy, the old dude who later pledged allegiance to Daenerys.

Rhaegar won, but instead of offering his wife Elia a crown of winter roses (as was tradition for the victor, to crown a "Queen of Love and Beauty"), he rode right past her and gave the prize to Lyanna. The two wouldn't see each other for a year, but from that moment, seeds of mistrust and infidelity were sown in several powerful houses.

Everything fell to shit when Rhaegar eloped with Lyanna; a lot of today's chaos in the seven kingdoms can be traced back to this shocking event, including Robert's Rebellion, which overthrew Aerys and put the Baratheons on the Iron Throne.

Lyanna's brother and father both went to King's Landing in the process of negotiating her return, which should have been the Starks' first clue to never go south; both Brandon and Rickard Stark were sentenced to death by the Mad King and publicly executed in horrendous fashion, prompting the rebellion led by Ned, Robert, and Jon Arryn.

Rhaegar left the pregnant Lyanna to join the fray and ended up dying in the rebellion at Robert's hand, after which the Mountain murdered his family and Lyanna gave birth at the Tower of Joy. She made Ned promise her on her deathbed to protect the child, and to raise him as a bastard Stark to protect him from enemies of the Targaryen family (including Robert Baratheon).

While many characters perpetuated the myth that Rhaegar abducted and raped Lyanna, that explanation always seemed fishy -- and the Season 7 finale confirmed it was BS, showing us Rhaegar and Lyanna's romantic outdoor wedding.

But once the truth about Jon's parentage becomes public knowledge, Cersei will have even more reason to resent him: Tywin initially tried to forge an alliance with the Targaryens by offering Cersei as a wife for Rhaegar, but Aerys chose Elia Martell instead.

Far from admiring Robert, Cersei was also infatuated with Rhaegar and believed that their marriage might have kept him from straying toward the "wolf girl" (classy). With Jon as the legitimate product of that union and a direct threat to Cersei's position, she'll have even more incentive to wipe out Jon and his family once and for all in Season 8 -- as if she needed any further encouragement.