Gendry first appeared in season one of the hit series Game of Thrones. The bastard son of King Robert Baratheon narrowly escaped execution during the massacre of all of Robert Baratheon's bastard children.
He ended up connecting with Arya Stark as he was sold to Tywin Lannister, the Brotherhood Without Banners, and eventually Stannis Baratheon. All were unaware of the boy's lineage. That is, until Melisandre the red priestess identified the 'king's blood' inside of him. Soon after, Ser Davos Seaworth put Gendry on a rowboat to escape death at the hands of Melisandre's blood magic.Then, the show was Gendry-less for several seasons, until he reappeared in season 7 and aided Jon Snow on his mission north of the wall.
Since Game of Thrones is ostensibly a show about a war of succession to the Iron Throne, many have wondered how the bastard son of Robert Baratheon figures into the story. It seems unlikely that this much would be made of Gendry's father, and the mysteriousness of who is mother is without some end-game in mind.
Some fans have even posited that his mother was none other than Queen Cersei Lannister, and that she had the child taken away because she couldn't bear to look at a child fathered by King Robert Baratheon, who she had married not out of love but out of politics. Of course, the true father of all her other children was her brother, Jaime Lannister.
The theory goes that if Gendry is, in fact, not a bastard, and he is the true-born son of King Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister, that would place him among the most legitimate claimants to the Iron Throne. Should this be true, he may even have a more legitimate claim than Jon Snow or Daenerys Targaryen whose lineage connects to the Targaryen line of succession, which was deposed in Robert's rebellion. Adding fuel to this theory is the way Gendry described his scant memories of his mother in season one, saying he remembered her yellow hair. Who has yellow hair? That's right, Cersei Lannister.
Joe Dempsie, the actor who plays Gendry, recently had this to say in an interview with Men's Health...
"I just wanted answers about my character. I was the most curious as to what we might find out about Gendry's parentage. Obviously, we know that he was the bastard of Robert Baratheon, but who might his mover have been?Fans have taken note that Gendry is the one potential claimant to the Iron Throne who did not get a 'for the throne' character poster heading into the final season. Some thought that HBO was trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
There's a line in season one, and it's a first scene you ever see of Gendry, where he's looking to Ned and he's asked about his mother, and he says he doesn't remember much about her at all, other than the fact that she had yellow hair and she would sing to him. It's one of those things where you go, "Do they usually write lines that don't mean anything, or lines that seem to have significance that [are] never addressed again?" I was kind of intrigued to see what that might mean, and what impact that might have on Gendry's clout politically."
While others thought that it meant the worst.
We'll just have to wait till the return of Game of Thrones next month to find out.
