Well, the cat is out of the bag: Jon Snow is coming back to life. It happened in Game of Thrones season 6, and it would be utterly flabbergasting if it didn’t also happen in Winds of Winter. The event will bring big changes to Jon Snow’s life—such as not being dead. And it will set him on the path for his destiny at Daenerys’s side. But first he has to find out about that destiny, and unlike his half-brother, he doesn’t have any tree visions to rely on. How will Jon Snow find out about R+L=J?

How Will Jon Snow Find Out About His Parentage?

It’s clear now that Game of Thrones is going to reveal R+L=J this season. The flashbacks to the Tower of Joy, one of the seminal events in the series, have already begun. We only need to actually go inside and Bran will learn the extremely evident, really not-in-doubt truth: that Jon Snow isn’t Ned Stark’s bastard. He’s Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark’s bastard, or maybe even their legitimate child, if they secretly eloped. It means that Jon Snow has Targaryen blood or may even be a Targaryen. Soon, Bran will know it.

But guess what—Bran’s hanging out with a tree north of the Wall and can’t walk. The three-eyed crow/raven says he’s not going to be there forever, but even if Bran left and did find Jon Snow… his vision isn’t exactly admissible in court.

Jon Snow will have to learn about his parentage the old-fashioned way: By talking to the only person in the world who actually knows about it. Only two men survived the battle at the Tower of Joy, and one of them—Ned Stark—has since died. The other is still alive. That, of course, is Howland Reed—Jojen and Meera’s father and the lord of the crannogmen and Greywater Watch. By all accounts, he’s still at Greywater Watch, and Jon Snow will need to find him there.

And now that he’s no longer part of the Night’s Watch, that task is a lot easier. Jon can go where he pleases. At least in the show, he’s probably off to Winterfell to save Rickon (or Sansa, who he believes to be there)… and somewhere along the way, someone will turn Jon Snow onto Howland Reed. Any of Ned’s old bannermen could do it—remind him to pay a visit to his father’s most important confidante. And if Jon goes to Greywater Watch… the truth will out. And the trajectory of Jon’s life will change forever.