Eddard Stark brought a nameless infant home from a war and raised him at Winterfell as his own, and the boy grew into the coldest kind of Stark scandal: a bastard reared alongside trueborn siblings under a lord's roof rather than banished from it, and resented for the mercy. Jon Snow took the black rather than watch his half-brothers inherit what he never could, and found at the Wall a brotherhood that did not care whose bed a man was born in. He proved himself there — swordsman, leader, wildling-tamer, and eventually the youngest Lord Commander the Night's Watch had chosen in living memory — but leadership at the edge of the world asks more of a man than the songs let on. A maester notes that few figures in the realm have been so thoroughly misjudged by their own kin, and so thoroughly vindicated by strangers.
Jon Snow
Lord Snow
- Life
- 283 AC, at the close of Robert's Rebellion (the circumstances of his birth are themselves disputed — see the tower of joy)
- House
- Stark (acknowledged bastard, raised at Winterfell); his true parentage is a matter the histories have not yet settled
Last confirmed at the Wall, embroiled in the war against the wildlings and the dead beyond it — the histories will not say more than that for the show-only reader.
The arc of Jon Snow
This carries the character’s road through the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
In the timeline
Theories about Jon Snow
Is Jon Snow alive?
As of the last published pages of A Dance with Dragons, his fate is deliberately left open — the chronicle will not resolve it further until The Winds of Winter is in hand.
Who is Jon Snow?
The acknowledged bastard son Eddard Stark brought home from Robert's Rebellion, raised at Winterfell, who took the black and rose to command the Night's Watch.