People have been arguing about who deserves to sit on the Iron Throne ever George R.R. Martin published the first book A Game of Thrones in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Given the setup of the series, it should come as no surprise to learn that said discussion has been more often furious than not, though there are some claimants that started out popular and have remained so in the time since. One example is Jon Snow for the simple reason that he is the son of the star-crossed lovers Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, thus making him the “obvious” choice to sit on the Iron Throne at the end of the series.
However, the issue is far from being so simple. For example, there are a lot of fans who are unconvinced that Westeros should remain united at the end of the series. Instead, they believe that the kingdom should separate into its pre-Conquest components, meaning that each remaining Lord Paramount would become a king in their own right instead of pledging their allegiance to a new king of a new line in a new capital. However, it is important to remember that Jon has faults of his own, which might not make him so well-suited for ruling a kingdom most of which he has never even seen.
There are a number of potential arguments that can be made against Jon Snow as a claimant to the Iron Throne:
Legitimacy
Speaking bluntly, Jon has no more than a tenuous right to sit on the Iron Throne. Even assuming that Rhaegar and Lyanna had gotten married, it would’ve been a bigamous marriage because Rhaegar was married to Elia Martell at the time. Yes, the Targaryens have been known to practice polygamy, but the last known example would be Maegor the Cruel, who lived more than two centuries ago. As a result, there are a lot of people who would consider Jon to be a Targaryen bastard, assuming that they would even believe a claim of him being the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna when there is no real proof of it. Although this can seem like legal quibbling, this is important because people have no reason to buy into a legal system unless its rules are applied in a consistent manner. Granted, the legal system is not great, but considering the visible results of what happens when the system breaks down, it is still preferable to the war of all against war.
Serious Missteps
Jon has a number of virtues to recommend him in the books. For example, he is motivated to do the right thing, which is rather important for a ruler. Furthermore, he is willing to look past his personal prejudices, which is the result of his interactions with the wildlings. However, there can be no doubt about the fact that he made serious errors in his leadership, with an excellent example being his failure to consider the fears of his brothers in the Night’s Watch. As a result, he was assassinated by an impromptu collection of conspirators when he announced his intentions of breaking the Night’s Watch’s longstanding neutrality by marching on the Boltons, which confirmed the worst fears of men who had been spooked by his necessary collaboration with Stannis as well as the wildlings. Jon’s choices were sympathetic, but at the same time, his blindness to what was happening suggests that he still has a lot to larn. Something that he shares with Daenerys, though it remains to be seen how the two will change in The Winds of Winter.
Lackluster Storyline in the Show
With that said, Jon is much worse in the show, which flattens him into a simpler and much more straightforward character by removing the complexities of his storyline from the books. For example, his assassin becomes much more villainous in the show because the Others are a much more immediate threat due to the events of Hardhome, whereas in the books, the fears of the Night’s Watch in regards to the wildlings are much more understandable because they had just come under attack by them in a near-run thing while the Others have remained out of sight and thus out of mind for the most part. Furthermore, the show’s narrative seems to go out of its way to set up Jon as the hero, with a particularly egregious example being how he took over Stannis’s storyline of fighting the Boltons, meaning that his ascension to the Iron Throne would feel forced rather than satisfying with so much going in his favor.
