Game of Thrones season 6 is moving into uncharted territory, deep into Winds of Winter, which—we hope—will come out next year. For now, the next season and the next book are huge mysteries. Our only roadmap is what’s gone before. The end of A Dance With Dragons and the death of Jon Snow will, however, clearly have a big part to play in the story. Indeed, the resolution of those events will bring about the long-awaited reveal of R+L=J… and with it the secret of the Knight of the Laughing Tree.
The Knight Of The Laughing Tree And R+L=J
If you don’t know about the Knight of the Laughing Tree, here goes: In the days before Robert’s Rebellion, King Aerys II Targaryen held a great tourney at Harrenhal. The Starks, then young, all attended—Brandon, Eddard, Lyanna, and Benjen—as did many of their bannermen, including the crannogman Howland Reed. A small and strange-looking man but (eventually) Eddard’s closest friend, Reed was beaten up by three young squires who mocked him for his appearance and lack of martial skills. Lyanna stepped in and drove away his attackers.
In the tourney, the knights for whom those three squires squired all rose high in the lists until a mystery knight rose to defeat them. The knight was “short of stature,” had cobbled-together, mismatched armor, and a shield with the image of “a white weirwood with a laughing red face.” Hence Knight of the Laughing Tree. The Knight defeated the three knights whose squires beat up Howland Reed and ransomed their armor back—on the condition that they chastise their squires. Then the Knight disappeared. Aerys, ever paranoid, sent Rhaegar off to find the Knight. He did not report success. Separately, at the end of the Tourney, Rhaegar declared Lyanna Stark the Queen of Love and Beauty, instead of his own wife. Not long after, he abducted her (according to Robert) or they ran off together (according to common sense). Thus, Robert’s Rebellion and the fall of the Targaryens began.
In the books, the tale of the Knight of the Laughing Tree is told by Jojen and Meera Reed to Bran Stark. They express surprise several times that he has never heard the tale from his father. So, who was the Knight of the Laughing Tree? Theories of course abound: Some say it was Howland Reed, and there are compelling reasons in favor. Brandon, Eddard, and Benjen all have been proposed.
But far and away the likeliest candidate, as I see it, is of course Lyanna herself. She had already leapt to Reed’s defense once, and cared about his well being—and about justice. We know that, like Arya, she had much more interest in martial arts than in Sansa’s hobbies. She would have been small of stature, being a teenage girl in a tournament of great knights. And most of all, if she was the Knight of the Laughing Tree, it explains how Lyanna met Rhaegar in the first place. That’s something we otherwise have no idea about. As far as the books have revealed, Rhaegar never met Lyanna before the tourney. They did not publicly interact at the tourney, although Lyanna did weep at the song he played during the feast before the jousting began. And by the end of the tourney, she was the Queen of Love and Beauty. There’s a disconnect there—one easily explained if she was the Knight of the Laughing Tree. Rhaegar sought out the Knight, and he found her, and fell in love. Thus the future took root in the past.
And this all matters for Game of Thrones season 6 and Winds of Winter, potentially a great deal. It is the key to R+L=J, the well-supported theory that Jon Snow is Rhaegar and Lyanna’s son rather than Ned’s. And that story is key to his resurrection—if he has Targaryen blood, even though he’s still probably a bastard, he is one of the three heads of the dragon. And the case for his return to life becomes much more compelling and important.
I think Game of Thrones season 6 will have at least one flashback, to the Tower of Joy where Lyanna died. And it may have another, to the great tourney at Harrenhal. Or Howland Reed himself may tell the tale, or greenseer Bran will discover it. But mark my words: We’ll find out more about the Knight of the Laughing Tree before this book and this season are done.
