'[p]seudo-sibling-incest foil with a cousin marriage escape clause' Rouka we love your work. Amazing incredible spectacular showstopping.
It's so funny how those elements you describe are what makes Jonsa work, but so many of the criticisms are founded on precisely that!
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Thank you anon!
The thing about Jonsa is that - yes - it is incest angst. That's the big test of character, the dark temptation, the heart in conflict between love and duty, the impossible desire.
RLJ isn't about two surprise cousins suddenly losing their sense of sibling relationship because it's now legal to marry. It's not about paving the way and then falling in love. It's not about avoiding the taint of incestuous love. It's not about the Starks being "above" such damning transgressions.
It's about a look inside the abomination. And finding innocence in it.
They believe each other to be siblings, they refer to each other this way. But they won't feel about each other this way. And that's a big conflict. Jaime and Cersei, and the more zealous Targaryens, are not conflicted about incest. They like it. They want to be with the closest possible iterations of themselves. It is one aspect of their toxic world view, the way they have been damaged by it.
Jon and Sansa do not. That's why GRRM made them look like the parental Stark marriage counterparts, not like each other. We are invited along on a journey inside the problem, from the perspective of two people who understand it's a problem. Who do not blithely act, but who persist in romantic love.
It's about being sucked into that tragedy, about having to deal with that mix of joy and heartbreak, about being as faithful to one's impossible love as one can be without becoming a monster in the process. It's about dealing with the darkness inside in a way that is accepting and noble.
And because this is a song: It's about a miracle occuring to make the impossible, dark, damning and tragic dream... possible.
Because in their society, being cousins is the "get out of jail free" card. What noble is going to care if they knew about RLJ beforehand or not, if they grew up as siblings, as long as they are not now. They can spin this story to make it work. (And if their siblings want to judge them for the shape of their love, let them cast the first stone if they haven't been guilty of worse.)
This is the narrative point of that twist of the parentage reveal. It's the hidden reward. The one thing that is made possible in a positive way by this revelation.
Not Jon suddenly embracing some kind of Targaryen identity, riding a dragon and gaining status. He has a wolf and a Stark identity, he doesn't gain anything he wants on that front.
Not Jon being the prophetic savior, son of Saint Rhaegar the Visionary. He is not the magical key to either apocalyptic threat, and his existing contributions are not related to his parentage.
