Board Thread:TV Show Discussion/@comment-1399600-20160629121258/@comment-5308269-20160809014228

Tinnic wrote: I think you guys are missing the most important aspect of Jon getting hailed the King In the North. The Northmen are essentially writing/rewriting the rulebook and laws as they are going along. The current rules of succession came from the Iron Throne and might also have been sanctioned by the Faith of the Seven. European Monarchs, for example, used to need a special bottle of oil from the Vatican to "anoint" their rulers.

Here is the thing, the North decided to stop following the Iron Throne when they declared Robb king. Roose Bolton forced them back into the fold but you can't follow the Iron Throne and still have a King in the North. Most of them could not give two shits about the Faith of the Seven. The old gods have no priests. Last I looked, the North had no constitution. By tradition, the King in the North is named Stark. But that can be loosely interpreted to mean "the King in the North has Stark blood", which Jon undoubtedly has.

So really, the only people who can object is Sansa, Arya and Bran. I think we can all agree that Arya and Bran who love and adore their brother would never contest his claim. If anything, they will go out of their way to take themselves out of consideration. Bran's paralysis apparently rendered him incapable of having children. That alone he can use to take himself out of consideration. Arya might be interested in leading Stark forces but she isn't going to want to be Queen of the North or Lady of Winterfell.

Only Sansa might try something but at this point, she has NO Northern support. The Free Folk don't know her and don't care about her. She got called a Lannister and a Bolton when she was talking to House Mormont. House Mormont gave their support to Jon, not her. Lord Glover clearly thought Sansa was an entitled little shit who didn't understand how betrayed the North felt by Robb and his inability to keep a simple marriage bargain with Walder Frey. Replaying the scene, he only seemed to have received them because of Jon. So if Sansa wants to try something. She'll have to do it as an invader with the Knights of the Vale and possibly Tully forces (pretty sure Jon is going to take back the Riverlands, probably with help from Euron as a surprise twist because everybody is expecting him to ally with Cersei, next season). Which is going to go down SOOOO well in the North!

Jon can continue to call himself Snow. Change his name to Stark or start calling himself Targaryen. At this point, it doesn't matter. They hailed him king because of who Jon is as a person. They might change their mind if one of the trueborn kids return and press their claim against his. But we know only Sansa might try that and in my opinion, she won't get far with actual Northmen! "I think you guys are missing the most important aspect of Jon getting hailed as King in the North."

No we're not! Jon being a Targaryen on his father's side is bad for his claim to Winterfell. Jon being acclaimed King in the North over his trueborn siblings is tantamount to treason. Little Lyanna Mormont can pout and say that Jon Snow's bastardy is of no importance all she wants, but if she had any bastard siblings or cousins with extensive military backgrounds, and they thought they were more fit to rule Bear Island than she, Lady Mormont would definitely care then!

The Northern lords are not "re-writing" any rulebook on laws of succession, that's bullshit! Nor did the Iron Throne dictate the laws of succession. Those existed centuries BEFORE the Targaryen conquest. The Northerners practice male-line primogenture within the bounds of marriage, which is quite a common form of hereditary monarchy across cultural lines. They chose Jon Snow because a) they think he's Ned Stark's son, b) because they want to be independent, and c) because because he led the army which emerged victorious at the Battle of the Bastards, even though the battle was actually won by the Knights of the Vale. They're willing to compromise with tradition in this one instance, but it would be a different story if it was their own inherited lordships which were being disputed by their bastard-kin. It was a stroke of hypocrisy for the Northern lords to choose Jon over Sansa, and it shows a lack of wisdom on their part to acclaim as their king a guy who proved himself an incompetent general in the field. They're just desperate for a leader of their newly-independent kingdom.

We don't know how Bran will react to Jon being King. As the strongest claimant to Winterfell, it is not only Bran's birthright, but it is his responsibility to be their king. To shirk his lordly duties would be seen as selfish and cowardly. It is totally irrelevant whether Bran wants to be king. He HAS to be king. And I don't believe Jon would keep it from him either, especially when he learns who his real parents were. It would be within Jon's character to abdicate as king in Bran's favour. He doesn't even need to tell everyone the true reason; he could just tell them that Bran's their true king and he's willing to serve him. So no, I don't agree that Bran would wilfully back out of the succession. He might not want to be king, but neither he or his people would let him refuse it.