The rule of the Lannisters in King’s Landing is increasingly tenuous in Game of Thrones season 6. The Faith is growing in power, while Cersei weakens. Tommen is goodhearted, indecisive and weak—and prophesied to die before Cersei does. Who is his heir? Who will sit the Iron Throne after him? Those are two different questions with potentially different answers, but one thing’s for certain: It won’t be Gendry.

Gendry And The Iron Throne: Big Ol’ Nope

We haven’t seen Gendry in a while, but he’s still a fan favorite—a genuinely good guy who helped out Arya and others in their time of need. He’s also the son of the late King Robert Baratheon, and as a result, some fans hope that he could end up sitting the Iron Throne someday. He’d probably be a decent king, and after all, he’s Robert’s son, right? Well, goody for him—Robert Baratheon had lots of kids. Unfortunately for Gendry and his half-siblings, none of them were legitimate. Gendry’s a bastard, and that means he can never inherit the Iron Throne.

Robert Baratheon had twenty children, according to the prophecy of Maggy the Frog, while Cersei only had three. Those three—Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella—are the only legitimate heirs to Robert Baratheon… even though they aren’t really his children. If the kingdom recognized them as the bastards they are, then they would no longer be his legitimate heirs.

But even if King Tommen were recognized as a bastard—or when he dies—the claim to the Iron Throne doesn’t pass to Gendry. Bastards generally are not in the line of inheritance, period, unless they’ve been expressly legitimized. This hasn’t happened for Gendry, and won’t. If Tommen dies, the strongest claim to the Iron Throne passes to Robert’s siblings and their children—all of whom are deceased in the show (But not in the books, where Stannis is the closest heir after Tommen and Myrcella). And Robert had no uncles or granduncles. With Stannis’s death, House Baratheon is extinct. Tommen’s closest heir is actually Daenerys.

While Gendry has no legitimate claim to the Iron Throne, sometimes bastards do seize power. But not bastards like Gendry. Successful bastards are men like Jon Snow, who are raised in castles alongside lords… or men like Ramsay Snow, who got his father to legitimize him in the absence of any other heirs. The Blackfyres were a line of bastards, but even they were legitimized. Even the book character Edric Storm, a bastard of Robert’s by a noblewoman of House Florent, has a likelier base of support. But Gendry is the bastard son of a king and a peasant mother. Robert liked and supported him. But Gendry has no base of support. He can’t raise armies or call noble houses to his side. Barely anyone even knows he exists and is King Robert’s son. He has no claim to the Iron Throne and he cannot take it by force.

No. Instead, Gendry will have a happier and hopefully longer life, working as a blacksmith.