Here’s the Significance of That Feather in the Game of Thrones

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Game of Thrones.

One of the new Game of Thrones season 8 teasers opened with Jon Snow (Kit Harington) walking solemnly through the crypts of Winterfell and seemed to hint at a long-awaited reveal.

As Jon passes by the effigy of Lyanna Stark in the teaser we see the feather. Fans might recognize that it’s the very same feather that Robert Baratheon placed in her statue’s hand in the series’ first episode. The feather flutters to the ground behind Jon and he looks back, appearing confused, before continuing down the tunnel.

As fans know but Jon Snow is not yet aware, the King in the North is not actually the illegitimate son of Ned Stark, but rather the child of Ned’s sister, Lyanna, and Rhaegar Targaryen. In a series of flashbacks shown in the season 7 finale, it was revealed that Rhaegar wed Lyanna after annuling his marriage to Elia Martell. Lyanna then gave birth to Jon — whose real name is Aegon Targaryen — before she died, making him a trueborn Targaryen.

Lyanna and Rhaegar were very much in love when she ran away to be with him while still betrothed to Robert. However, Robert was blinded by his feelings for Lyanna and incited a rebellion against the Targaryen throne by claiming that Rhaegar kidnapped and raped her. Many in the Seven Kingdoms still believe that Robert’s version of events was credible.

But after seeing Robert’s feather finally fall from Lyanna’s statue in the new teaser, some fans are speculating that the truth about Lyanna, Rhaegar and Jon will finally be revealed to all in season 8.

“Jon walking by and blowing the feather off the statue is symbolic of the fact that Jon is a child of Lyanna and the Targaryen,” one reddit user posits. “Jon’s existence is a symbol of Lyanna’s rejection of Robert’s love for her. Jon is a force of revealing the truth and his character destroys the lies everyone believes.”