All right, folks, let's talk. Let's talk #GoT and #SPN and how GoT serves as a good analogy of what's happening in the Supernatural fandom right now.

Generally speaking, I don't have a high opinion of D&Ds ability to interpret their source material acurately.

But when they deduced FROM THE TEXT that Jon Snow was the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, that was because they knew how to interpret the clues that George R. R. Martin had carefully woven into it.

(Or if they didn't, at least they were capable of comprehending fan theories which outlined it to them.)

Plenty of people who had read the books were still surprised by the reveal. There are different reasons for that.

Some didn't pay enough attention.

Some thought all these clues were just random and accidental, they basically refused to do the maths required to come to the conclusion that one certain explanation made more sense than the others: R+L=J.

Some read the text carefully but weren't capable of making the necessary connection on their own. Brains work differently, and not everyone has the literacy required to understand the nuances of a text, especially when it's necessary to read between the lines.

For example, in a piece of dialogue, it's not only about what is said, it's about HOW it is said and sometimes about what ISN'T said. When Ned tells Catelyn,"[Jon] is my blood. That is all you need to know", and thereby carefully avoids calling Jon his son,

not everyone is capable of picking up on the implications.

No matter; in the end, Jon Snow was revealed to be Lyanna's and Rhaegar's son. And that wasn't because D&D had suddenly decided to give Martin's story an unexpected twist.

The foundation had already been written into the text (which we know because D&D had only gotten Martin's permission for an adaptation after they told him the correct answer).

By interpreting the text correctly, some fans had been able to draw the right conclusion.

They had done the maths, simple as that.

Now, imagine, that people who had ascribed to the theory that Jon Snow was Rhaegar's and Lyanna's son right from the beginning had been called delusional and stupid by other viewers for years.

They had been made fun of, had been bad-mouthed and told they were imagining things that weren’t there. They had been accused of wanting to "make it all about the Targaryens".

"Jon has dark hair and grey eyes! He is a Stark!"

Imagine that this went on for years, that this wasn't only a minor disagreement but a major issue for the show's divided fanbase.

But then, in one of the last epsiodes of Game of Thrones, it was suddenly revealed throughg one of Bran's visions that Lyanna was Jon's mother.

Yet for whatever reason, when the show ended, it was never actually answered whether Rhaegar was actually his father – even though it remained of course the most logical conclusion. But it wasn't made explicit.

The ball was dropped.

Imagine other viewers came along to state that "Bran's vision meant something different! What we saw wasn't what you think you saw! That woman wasn't even Lyanna! And even if Lyanna were his mother, his father could be anyone! It just doesn't make SENSE!"

And these viewers then kept telling the fans who had always suspected that R+L =J they were wrong. Kept telling them they were imagining things. Kept accusing them of trying to turn Jon Snow into something he was not and make it all about the Targaryens.

And if these fans reacted then reacted less than favorably to the fact that the showrunnners had decided not to resolve the mystery, deliver the answer to that important question, they would be met with a wealth of scorn and condescension.

"That wasn't what the show was about!"

And of course, they would be right because Game of Thrones has never ONLY been about Jon Snow. But Jon Snow and the identity of his parents were nevertheless an important part of the story.

This is, in a nutshell, what is happening in the Supernatural fandom right now.

And it's as ugly and as mean-spirited and exhausting as it gets.

Even without addressing the issue of why the ball was dropped, why the writers would withhold the answer to an important question that the narrative has asked.

Castiel was in love with Dean, but what about Dean?

And it’s without getting into the discussion about what it means when a love story between two men is treated like a conspiracy theory – as if the people who saw it unfold on screen should be ashamed of themselves for seeing it in the first place.