Game Of Thrones Has Me Justifying Incest — & I'm Cool With That

Last night, I found myself screaming “make out” at my television, egging on two fictional family members who don’t know they’re family members to finally do the thing we’ve been wanting them to do all season. On the penultimate episode of this season of Game of Thrones, Dany tends to a (gloriously shirtless) Jon Snow post-battle, and damn, sparks were flying. These weren’t even sparks. This was something akin to dragon fire zooming between Dany and Jon. I swear, if these two do not relieve us all of this sexual tension before the series ends, and then form the ultimate power couple to save the world on Game of Thrones, I am throwing my television in the garbage.

I am convinced that once the two of them dissipate the sexual tension that’s been brewing between them, get married, and decide to co-rule, they can save Westeros from everything that’s coming at them. If last night’s battle was any indication, they are the perfect duo to take on the Night King — ice dragon or not. Together, they’d run Westeros like equals, transforming Game of Thrones from the depressing show in which all your faves die into an hour of television that shows exactly what good governing looks like. (And we could really use that example right now.)

This, of course, is complicated by the small fact that Jon Snow is definitely the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen. Rhaegar, you might remember, is Dany’s older brother. Ipso facto, Dany is Jon’s aunt, he is her nephew, and I’m over here on my couch with some popcorn actively rooting for their budding romance, telling myself that is not, most definitely not, ahem, you-know-what.

Because this kind of relationship is obviously not something I would condone in real life. My stomach churns every time Jaime and Cersei Lannister go to pound town. But for some reason, Jon and Dany are end game for me.

I’ve been justifying it every which way — especially because marriages between close relatives have been common throughout history. So many famous couples over the centuries have been first or second cousins: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and even Charles Darwin (or Mr. Father of Evolution to you) and his wife Emma were cousins.

According to FiveThirtyEight, it still happens: there are about 250,000 people in America who are married to their second cousins or close. And, according to Gizmodo, the majority of people who advocate against these marriages are people who are just afraid that a close gene pool will lead these people to have kids with recessive, potentially harmful traits. But tish tosh. Game of Thrones is full of children formed by tight kin. Dany herself is the product of King Aerys and his sister-wife Rhaella. If so, then Dany really is changing the blood line up with a nephew who is only half Targaryen. I mean, by Targaryen standards, Jon is practically a stranger. And Dany has been quite clear about the fact that she can no longer get pregnant. Problem solved, kids!

Can we also just mention the fact that Dany and Jon have no idea that they’re even related? The only person who might know is Bran, aka the Three-Eyed-Raven, aka the emo brother who took one semiotics class his freshman year and now says weird shit like, “I see everything.” And given the fact that the show seems hell-bent on keeping a full Stark reunion from us until the bitter end, we’ve got plenty of time before Jon figures out that the babe he’s been scoping is actually his auntie Dany.

I once almost made out with a guy at a party who wound up being a second-cousin — and we didn’t make the connection until it was almost too late. If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? If you and a dragon queen hook up before you learn she’s your aunt, is it really interloping? Jon Snow knows nothing! He cannot be blamed!

These mental gymnastic are exhausting. Literally none of this even really matters. Westeros isn’t real. These two people aren’t real. So the you-know-what isn’t really real. So, can you just give us this one, Game of Thrones? I am a full-blown Dany and Jon shipper. A Jany shipper, if you may. And for the love of god, George R.R. Martin, can you just let my damn ship sail?