There's More to Rhaegar & Lyanna's Marriage on 'Game Of Thrones' Than Meets The Eye

The truth about Jon Snow is out and Game of Thrones fans finally have the answer they've been waiting years to know: Jon Snow is in fact a Targaryen prince and not a bastard. After being hinted at throughout the show's run, the truth was finally shared in a conversation between Samwell Tarly and Bran Stark and confirmed in one of Bran's visions.

This scene in the #GameofThrones Season 7 finale seemed to doubly confirm what Gilly revealed to Samwell in Oldtown about Jon's parentage. Now, #HBO has released a new photo that points out that Gilly may have missed one important detail in High Septon Maynard's journal: that someone else may have known about the wedding of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Lady Lyanna Stark and that there could have possibly been talk of multiple Targaryen wives.

A new image of High Septon Maynard's diary is very revealing.

In Maynard's journal, as seen below in a newly-released HBO image from the Making Game of Thrones site, it is revealed that he issued an annulment to Rhaegar and Princess Elia Martell, making the child of Lyanna and Rhaegar the true heir to the Iron Throne. However, the High Septon also makes mention that someone else may have known about this secret marriage but forbid him from ever speaking about it again.

When we start really reading the specific excerpt (seen in the image below), we have some interesting details about the events surrounding the annulment of Rhaegar and Elia's marriage and the subsequent wedding of Rhaegar and Lyanna.

Due to unforeseen events and [unknown], I have to [unknown] from jotting down my records for [unknown] annulment to Prince Rhaegar [unknown] marriage to Elia Martell [unknown] marriage to Lyanna Stark in Dorne. [unknown] forbid me to tell anyone of the ceremony so I shall [unknown]

This sure sounds more complicated than just annulling a marriage. When you take into account the history of the Targaryen royal family and the tense political landscape of marriages in Essos and Westeros, it seems odd that Rhaegar wouldn't simply just take another wife.

Is it possible that Rhaegar wanted two wives?

What we can gather from Maynard's journal is that there was a lot of secrecy surrounding the wedding of Rhaegar and Lyanna, considering Maynard was forbidden from speaking of the ceremony by some unknown person. If this unknown person is still alive on Game of Thrones and the fact of their knowing about the secret marriage is revealed, then they could be the person to tell Jon Snow who he truly is, not Bran or Sam. But who could this person be?

Furthermore, if Rhaegar left Elia, then the amount of secrecy behind his new marriage makes little sense considering the fact that Dorne's reaction to a failed marriage would have been pretty bad (think Robert's Rebellion x5). In his journal, Maynard specifically writes "annulment to Prince Rhaegar" rather than "annulment for Prince Rhaegar" which makes it sound as though he suggested an annulment to Elia from Rhaegar, but Rhaegar rejected the idea. Was Rhaegar angling to have more than one wife, a thing Elia might not have liked?

Since this was the High Septon's personal journal, he likely wrote exactly what he felt as it was a personal experience for him as the secret wedding to Lyanna Stark went directly against the Faith of the Seven in Westeros.Taking multiple wives is seen as act of heresy in the Faith of the Seven, and was one of the major factors that led to the uprising of the Faith Militant. Because of this Maynard was in a bind since on the one hand he would be presiding over a ceremony that was seen as an abomination to his Faith while on the other if he refused he would be disobeying a direct command from his ruler. Secrecy sounds like a decent compromise to me in that situation.

For now, we'll just have to keep wondering whether we know all the secrets of Rhaegar and Lyanna's marriage.