Warning! Spoilers for Game of Thrones: The Mad King ahead!It looks like the Game of Thrones franchise just confirmed one TV show plotline while retconning another outrageous detail. The information comes from the new stage play called Game of Thrones: The Mad King, which just began preview performances at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon on July 28th, 2026. This is a project A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin was rather excited to announce, and he made it quite clear that he was heavily involved in the creative process. That’s great news for canon.
The story of The Mad King revolves around the famed Tourney at Harrenhal, where Prince Rhaegar Targaryen famously crowned the Lady Lyanna Stark as the Queen of Love and Beauty rather than his own wife. While both Game of Thrones and Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire provide various accounts of the event, there were several mysteries that only the perspectives of Rhaegar or Lyanna could solve. It’s for precisely this reason that an as-close-to-canon-as-we-can-get-without-a-book adaptation set during the tourney is such a valuable idea.
The primary thing we all wanted to know going into The Mad King is whether Game of Thrones was correct that Prince Rhaegar and Lyanna Stark were Jon Snow’s parents, and that they conceived through love and not rape. The play didn’t disappoint, and this detail was quickly confirmed. R+L=J can almost certainly be considered canon now, but we can’t say the same for their whole story as it was portrayed in HBO’s Game of Thrones. For example, The Mad King claims that Rhaegar and Lyanna were not secretly married, and they didn’t name Jon Aegon.
After Game of Thrones season 8, it was heavily theorized by book fans that Martin would not name Jon Aegon Targaryen in his next A Song of Ice and Fire books, Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. After all, Rhaegar already had a legitimate son named Aegon. Even in the context of the TV show, it’s weird that he or Lyanna would reuse the name, but it’s even stranger in the book since it’s suggested (though not confirmed) that Jon’s brother Aegon is still alive. There’s already enough Aegons in this story, so it’s great to hear we won’t be getting another.
Several Other Targaryen Names Make Way More Sense For Jon Snow
In Game of Thrones: The Mad King, a Targaryen name is never mentioned for young Jon Snow. It seems likely that he will have one, but Martin may want to keep this quiet until his new books are (eventually) released. As previously mentioned, it’s very unlikely that Jon will be an Aegon. However, given what we know about Rhaegar and the Targaryens, there are some other likely options.
Prince Rhaegar Targaryen was obsessed with the Prince That Was Promised prophecy, a detail which Game of Thrones: The Mad King reinforced. It therefore makes sense that he would name his first two children Rhaenys and Aegon, after Aegon the Conqueror and his sister/wife. This first Targaryen king had another sister/wife, however, and her name was Visenya. Rhaegar theorized that three Targaryens would fulfill the prophecy, and he sought to bring those heroes forth. Therefore, he might have planned to symbolically name his third child after Visenya.
The male alternative for the name Visenya is Viserys, which happened to be Rhaegar’s younger brother’s name. Still, uncles and nephews sharing a name isn’t unheard of in the way two siblings named Aegon would have been. Therefore, this is certainly an option. There would be some poetry to it in relation to Aegon’s dream, but the fact that Rhaegar didn’t anticipate his sister, Daenerys, fulfilling the prophecy (at least in part) suggests that there will not be three promised princes sharing the names of Aegon and his sisters.
Another feasible and even more poetic option would be for Jon’s true name to be Aemon Targaryen. Jon developed a close relationship with Maester Aemon, whom he eventually learned to be a Targaryen prince. Aemon was the brother of King Aegon V, who serves as a primary character in HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Since Jon is also a brother to an Aegon, it makes some sense that he would be named after his great-great-granduncle. Only time will tell. So long as Game of Thrones was wrong about “Aegon,” we’re happy.
- TV Show(s)
-
Game Of Thrones, House of the Dragon, A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms
- First TV Show
-
Game Of Thrones
- Cast
-
Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage, Sophie Turner, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Maisie Williams, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Iain Glen, John Bradley, Alfie Allen, Conleth Hill, Liam Cunningham, Gwendoline Christie, Aidan Gillen, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Rory McCann, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jerome Flynn, Rhys Ifans, Matt Smith, Graham McTavish, Fabien Frankel, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Emma D’Arcy, Matthew Needham, Olivia Cooke, Milly Alcock, Emily Carey
- Created by
-
George R.R. Martin
Game of Thrones is a multimedia franchise created by George R.R. Martin. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is the basis for the award-winning HBO series Game of Thrones, which lasted for eight seasons. After the incredibly divisive final season of Game of Thrones, the series was followed up by the prequel series House of the Dragon, which also received critical acclaim.