Jon Snow was raised as the bastard son of Eddard Stark. Young Griff was raised as Aegon, the trueborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen. Readers have long questioned both their lineages, and the belief that Jon is Rhaegar's trueborn son has achieved almost universal acceptance. ("L+R=J") I believe this to be only half the story - Jon and Aegon have their paternity precisely reversed. Aegon is not a Targaryen, but is Eddard Stark's bastard, fathered after a tryst with Ashara Dayne at the infamous tournament in the Year of the False Spring. This symmetry is not merely poetic, but follows readily from a group of other facts and inferences supported by textual evidence.

Facts and Inferences

Eddard Stark and Ashara Dayne really did have a tryst at the Tournament at Harrenhal in the Year of the False Spring. That tryst resulted in a pregnancy.

Multiple independent information sources connect Eddard to an affair with Ashara Dayne, most of which agree that the union produced a pregnancy. It was whispered in Winterfell when Jon was still an infant just after the war ended.1 It's a rumor in King's Landing enough that Cersei Lannister knows it even though her drink-addled husband thinks Jon's mother was a camp follower.2 It's a rumor in Starfall itself in Dorne, enough Lord Edric Dayne has heard it from Ashara's own kin.3 It's known to the Meera and Jojen Reed, who claim it comes from Howland's own lips.4 And it's known to Ser Barristan.5

There is too much detail, and too many independent sources to be coincidence. Eddard and Ashara had a tryst at the tournament, Ashara got pregnant, and shortly after Eddard returned the Sword of the Morning at the end of the war, she vanished in what everyone believes to be a suicide.

After the battle at the Tower of Joy, Eddard Stark rode to Starfall to return the Sword of the Morning, then returned to Winterfell. Ashara Dayne is widely reported to have killed herself at this time.

Immediately after the war, Eddard's journey from his melee with the Kingsguard to Starfall was already a growing legend.6 Cersei's reference to Ashara as the grieving sister indicates that this rumor was widely known, and the off-hand manner in which she references it without explanation shows that the event is common-enough knowledge as to need no explanation and to admit of no denial.2

Eddard Stark's sons take after their mother's family.

Westerosi genetics are expressly non-Mendelian, at least in the features of the Great Houses. This is how both Jon Arryn and Eddard Stark discovered Joffrey's bastardy.7 While we have a smaller sample size of Stark sons than Robert's fecundity gave his Hands to work with, it seems a reasonable inference that any son of Eddard Stark and Ashara Dayne would resemble her family as completely as Robb, Bran, and Rickon take after the Tullys. Which is important, because...

Ashara Dayne bears a striking resemblance to a member of the Targaryen family.

Ashara is noted to have had purple eyes, a feature distinctive to Valyrians, and pervasive in the Targaryen family.8 Barristan Selmy expressly notes that Daenerys looks as though she could be Ashara's daughter.9 If one of Aerys's Kingsguard believes that a would-be Targaryen monarch looks like a child of Ashara Dayne, who am I to argue?

Tyrion's description of Septa Lemore matches what Ashara's would be - but her physical description has been suspiciously sparse for one of George R. R. Martin's characters.

Ashara may not be dead. In fact, if she were the mother of "Aegon," she could be passing as Septa Lemore. Tyrion's observations make clear that Lemore is past 40, profoundly beautiful, and that she has previously given birth. This suggests a woman slightly older than Eddard Stark. She also enjoys bathing, and has no shame about her body. This suggests a Dornishwoman of high enough birth to have spent some time in the Water Gardens. Martin has given bizarrely little physical description of her beyond this; I suspect it's because if he mentioned her violet eyes, it would give away the game. She laughs easily, which is hardly unique, but again is consistent with Ashara Dayne's express characterization.10

Tying up the Loose Ends

I admit that the information is circumstantial, but so is the case for Jon - and so is almost every other case, since all of the information the audience has is contingent and mediated through limited point-of-view narrators. The case being circumstantial makes it no less compelling - and, unlike all previous Aegon theories, this case ties together a large number of loose ends that otherwise make no sense.

How did Eddard keep a newborn baby alive from the Tower of Joy to Starfall to Winterfell? How did he produce Jon ex nihilo without anyone asking questions? And who is Wylla?

Seriously. Go over the logistics in your mind. His army lifts the siege of Storm's End without a fight. He and six bannermen ride to the Tower of Joy. All but he and Howland Reed die, and they're left with a baby. How does he feed the baby without word getting out that that's when he acquired the baby? How does he make it to Starfall, then back to his army, then to Winterfell, without the baby dying? His time frame is tight - Catelyn notes that Jon was already ensconced with his wet nurse when she finally came to Winterfell.

The key is Wylla.

Edric Dayne, the Lord of Starfall whom Arya meets with the Brotherhood Without Banners, claims that he's milk brothers with Jon, because his lady mother was unable to nurse. Wylla, he says, had served the Daynes in Starfall for "years and years." This is an odd thing to volunteer - of course household staff has served a long time. Vayon Poole, I am sure, had served in Winterfell since he was barely more than a boy. The reason Edric says this is because Wylla is not a Dornish name. The only other Wylla we meet is the spunky girl in White Harbor who challenges Lord Manderly's false-fealty to the Lannister/Bolton/Frey alliance. It is a name from the region of the Bite.

Eddard himself, when pressed by Robert, won't reveal the name of the camp follower he slept with on the campaign. Eventually, Robert presses him with the slightly different question, "What was her name... your bastard's mother?" Eddard says "Wylla," and Robert notes that "You never told me what she looked like."

In the Three Sisters, Lord Godric tells of a fisherman's daughter who saved Eddard in a storm when he was headed north to rally his banners at the start of the rebellion, who was his child's mother. Dollars to donuts, her name was Wylla. The region is right, and it connects Edric and Eddard's stories.

Howland Reed acquired Wylla from Eddard's army as a wet nurse for Jon for the journey to Starfall and back, then dispatched her back to Starfall to remain with the household staff, so that Eddard could then present Jon as his bastard without associating it with the battle at the Tower of Joy.

By traveling to Starfall, not only could Eddard return Dayne's sword in an honorable way, but he could also provide a backstory for Jon. Critical to this, of course, is making sure that the woman who knows the truth of Jon's parentage stays at the far edge of the world.

Eddard saw his son Aegon in Starfall, then returned to his army holding Jon. With a grey-eyed baby in his arms, the man of legendary honesty and integrity declared, "I have a bastard son." Deceiving without lying, he let them all draw the obvious but false inference that he was talking about the baby he was holding, upholding his commitments to both his sister and to Truth.

Why does Catelyn asking if Ashara is Jon's mother make Eddard angry?

Lots of people picked up on the fact that Eddard says Jon is his blood rather than his seed or son when Catelyn asks if Ashara was his mother. What they don't ask is, "Why does asking if Ashara is Jon's mother anger Eddard?" The anger would be completely inexplicable if it were about Jon's lineage. He becomes volcanically angry, because it reminds him of his greatest shame: he, one time in his life, was moved to passion. He fell in love with Ashara Dayne, had premarital sex, fathered a bastard, ruined her life and prospects. He destroyed the one thing in the world he found most beautiful, and then she killed herself along with their son because of him. That is why he gets angry. His shame burns him.

What was in Robb's edict?

Robb discusses the possibility of legitimating Jon to secure the succession before the Red Wedding. Catelyn counsels against it, and notes that that would make Jon senior to Bran or Rickon. Jon signs an edict in front of his bannermen... but the reader doesn't see it. Martin is transparently trying to disguise that the edict legitimates the "bastard son of Eddard Stark," without specifying Jon (an elision that would be too obvious if stated), and thereby makes Aegon Sand into Aegon Stark, and so rightful lord of Winterfell following Robb's murder.

Do you really believe Varys's story?

Varys's story of sneaking Aegon out of King's Landing makes no sense. He convinced Elia to part with her infant son still at the breast? Tywin was so sloppy as to fail to kill the right infant? Gregor Clegane is obedient in his brutality - Tywin would surely have been able to ensure a specific body count amount of the violet-eyed. Come on, Aegon's story is a fairy tale, and a fairy tale with no witnesses except for Lord Varys... who, incidentally, is probably a Faceless Man. (My personal belief is that he and the kindly man are the same individual.)

Why is Lemore in the party?

She's not a septa. Jon Connington's point-of-view chapters refer to her as just "Lemore" or as "Lady Lemore." And yet he also expressly believes that her purpose is to instruct Griff in the Faith of the Seven. That's an absurd idea - if for no other reason than the fact that they could acquire an actual septa if religious instruction were the real purpose. Tyrion hammers this question: "Who is she, really? Why is she here? Not for gold, I'd judge. What is this prince to her? Was she ever a true septa?"

Oh, Tyrion. If you weren't so drunk, or if you'd ever had a parent's love, you'd see the truth of it. She's there for the simplest reason of all. Because she's his mother.

A Narrative Synopsis

At the Tournament at Harrenhal in the Year of the False Spring, Eddard Stark had a tryst with Ashara Dayne, and Rhaegar Targaryen fell in love with Lyanna Stark. Dayne became pregnant, and Lyanna eloped with Prince Rhaegar, under the defunct Targaryen practice of bigamy. Before leading an ill-fated army to the Trident, Rhaegar impregnated Lyanna, as well. Both women bore sons. After lifting the siege of Storm's End, Eddard traveled to the Tower of Joy with six bannermen to rescue his sister, where he discovered three Kingsguard. They were there instead of with Viserys because they were guarding Rhaegar's newborn heir, Jon. Eddard's dying sister, aware of the fate of Rhaegar's other children, and seeing that Jon took after her Stark features, demanded her brother promise to pass off Jon as his own bastard. Eddard so swore.

To sustain and conceal Jon, Eddard had to find a wet nurse of unassailable discretion. They secretly spirited the peasant girl Wylla, whom Eddard trusted implicitly after she saved his life in a storm, with them to Starfall on the pretext of returning Arthur Dayne's sword, but really to develop a fake backstory for the infant. Eddard met his and Ashara's bastard son Aegon Sand in Starfall before departing. Just before he rejoined his forces, Eddard dispatched Wylla back to Starfall to serve in the Daynes' household staff. Eddard then told his retainers, "I have a bastard son," while holding a baby with Stark features, Jon. Having just returned from Starfall, and given the rumors surrounding him and Ashara, everyone assumed that Jon was Eddard and Ashara's bastard. Eddard and his retinue reached Winterfell before Catelyn, who had spent the war in Riverrun.

For her part, Ashara would find it impossible to marry advantageously, having already borne a son. Lord Varys, or his representative, approached her with an alternative. Instead of living out her days as a paramour or the wife of a second child, she could travel across the narrow sea, and raise Aegon Sand to believe he was Aegon Targaryen, the rightful King on the Iron Throne, by declaring that he survived the Sack of Kings Landing due to a ruse of switched babies. Since Aegon resembled Ashara, who herself had the iconic Targaryen features, the lie had a surface plausibility, and the fantastically wealthy Pentoshi Illyrio Mopatis was more than willing to finance this plan. Whether he himself was aware of its falseness is unclear. In either case, however, Ashara's kin spread the rumor of her stillbirth and suicide. Ashara herself raised her son in the guise of a septa, a disguise chosen because it is both absolutely necessary to raise a Westrosi king, and irreplaceable while in Essos.

Eddard spent the rest of his life believing the only woman to truly move his heart to passion killed herself, and possibly their son with her, out of shame for having loved him. Just before the Red Wedding, in the presence of his bannermen, Robb Stark signed a edict legitimating Eddard Stark's bastard. Aegon Sand became Aegon Stark, the rightful lord of Winterfell following Robb's assassination, senior to either the crippled Brandon or toddler Rickon.