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The tragedy at Summerhall was a catastrophic event involving fire, sorcery, and death that occurred forty years before the main Game of Thrones story, deeply impacting the Targaryen dynasty and its quest to revive dragons.
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““Summerhall.”
The word was fraught with doom”.
It ended at Summerhall, with “sorcery, fire, and grief”.
The “tragedy at Summerhall” was a mysterious disaster that happened forty years before
the main story of Game of Thrones.
It was a fire that killed a king, and birthed a prince, and is tied to dragons, magic, prophecy,
and the destiny of Westeros.
So what happened at Summerhall?
A hundred years ago, King Daeron Targaryen peacefully unified Dorne with the rest of
Westeros.
To celebrate, he built a castle called Summerhall, near the borders of the Reach, stormlands,
and Dorne.
It was a “lightly fortified” castle, more of a “palace” – used as a home for Targaryen
princes.
In the time of the Dunk and Egg stories, Daeron’s son Maekar and some of his family lived there.
And eventually, Maekar’s son Aegon, or Egg, became king.
In his adventures with Dunk, Egg learned to respect the smallfolk – the.. peasants,
or common people – and to care for the “poor and weak”.
So as king, Egg made laws to help the smallfolk, giving them new rights and protections, and
limiting the power of the lords.
Many lords hated this, and some rebelled against him, so Egg spent much of his reign fighting
rebellions [including a rebellion by the Laughing Storm, Lyonel Baratheon!].
Even Egg’s children were rebellious.
Egg and his wife Betha arranged marriages for their kids that would help build alliances
with other powerful houses, but their sons refused these arranged marriages.
Egg’s eldest son and heir Prince Duncan gave up his claim to the throne and married
a mysterious common woman called Jenny of Oldstones.
Egg’s son Jaehaerys and daughter Shaera fell in love with each other, and got married.
They had two kids, Aerys and Rhaella, who also married each other and had kids, which
is, like, super.. double.. incest.
That’s where Rhaegar Viserys and Daenerys come from.
Egg’s youngest son Daeron was meant to marry a young Olenna Redwyne, the Queen of Thorns.
But Daeron refused the marriage, and instead had a relationship with a knight called Ser
Jeremy, before they died together in a battle.
Since Prince Duncan broke a betrothal with a Baratheon, his sister Rhaelle married a
Baratheon instead – which led to birth of Robert Baratheon, who would later overthrow
the Targaryens.
So King Egg was frustrated with his disobedient children, and rebellious lords, and he also
faced the threat of the Blackfyres – he defeated the Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion, but
a fifth rebellion loomed, with Maelys the Monstrous and the Ninepenny Kings gathering
in the east.
All Egg wanted was to bring “peace and prosperity and justice” to Westeros, but he couldn’t
do it when everyone fought against him, and forced him to compromise.
Egg came to believe that the only way he could get enough power to bring justice to the realm
was with dragons.
For the first hundred years of their dynasty, the Targaryens could crush any enemy with
their dragons.
But after the Targaryen civil war, the Dance of the Dragons, the dragons went extinct,
and the Targaryens weren’t as powerful.
They still had dragon eggs, and they tried everything to make them hatch – King Aegon
the Third got nine mages to work spells over the eggs, Baelor the Blessed prayed over the
eggs, maesters pored over the eggs, Egg’s brother Aerion drank wildfire to transform
himself into a dragon – but they all failed.
Every time the Targaryens tried to hatch dragons, they just “made fools of themselves, or
corpses”.
But still – Egg’s brother Daeron, and his uncle Aerys, even Daemon Blackfyre the
Second all said that dragons would return – they saw it in prophetic dreams, and read
of it in prophecy.
Soon, King Egg too dreamed of dragons.
He became obsessed with ancient Valyrian dragon lore, sending people searching as far east
as Asshai for lost books and knowledge on dragon breeding.
He was desperate for the power that he believed could bring peace to Westeros.
And this dream of dragons led to the tragedy at Summerhall.
The books only give us tiny hints of information what happened, but here’s what we know – King
Egg gathered his family together, to celebrate the pregnancy of his granddaughter Rhaella.
And there, King Egg performed some kind of ritual involving seven dragon eggs, pyromancers,
and wild fire.
The fire got out of control, and people died.
The books don’t actually say who died.
But it’s implied, and the official app confirms, that King Egg, his son Duncan, and his Kingsguard
Dunk died in the fire.
Rhaella survived, and as Summerhall burned, she gave birth to Prince Rhaegar.
The book hints that Dunk saved people from the fire before he died, so maybe Dunk saved
Rhaella and Rhaegar.
Back in The Hedge Knight, Dunk thinks that the realm might need his foot one day – so
maybe he.. kicks down a door to save the princess.
Then goes back into the fire to save King Egg, and dies with him, perhaps.
It sounds like Jenny of Oldstones may have died in the fire.
And possibly Queen Betha, and Egg’s sisters and their families, and Egg’s brothers’
children.
Summerhall explains why there are so few Targaryens left in the story – this disaster wiped
out a generation of them.
It was a catastrophe for the royal family.
So what caused this fire?
We know King Egg was trying to hatch dragons – he had seven dragon eggs and “wild fire”.
So maybe he thought the eggs would hatch if he put them in a really hot fire.
Which isn’t a bad idea.
The Targaryens used to hatch their dragon eggs in the fires of the volcanic island Dragonstone
– some said that the eggs needed that heat to hatch.
So maybe King Egg was just cooking up some googs, and things got out of hand.
Cause Egg was using wildfire, with the pyromancers of the Alchemists’ Guild.
And wildfire is super dangerous, it can easily get out of control – “any little mistake
can bring catastrophe”.
In Book 2, we learn that the pyromancers make wildfire in rooms rigged with sand held above,
so if the wildfire gets out of control, the sand falls down and smothers the flame – and
kills any people inside.
And in Dunk & Egg, Dunk has a dream where he and Egg are suffocated in sand.
So some fans think this sand system was set up at Summerhall, and killed Dunk and Egg.
Whatever the details, playing with fire is dangerous, so maybe Summerhall was just a
terrible accident.
But if that’s true, why all the secrecy and mystery around Summerhall?
The survivors would not speak of what happened, and this part of the worldbook is ‘blotted
out by ink’ so we can’t see the details of what happened.
What’s the author hiding here?
There are theories that Summerhall was not an accident.
That death was part of the plan.
Cause in this story, human sacrifice has magical power – “Only death can pay for life”,
and “A great gift requires” “great sacrifice”.
Like, Daenerys tries putting her dragon eggs in a fire, and that doesn’t make them hatch.
They hatch when she burns Mirri Maz Duur and the body of Khal Drogo in a big funeral pyre
with her eggs.
That sacrifice hatches her dragons, cause “Only death can pay for life”.
In Book 2, Melisandre tries to wake a dragon by burning a bastard son of King Robert.
She says “Only a king’s blood can wake the stone dragon”.
By ‘stone dragon’, she seems to think she can transform the stone dragon statues
on Dragonstone into living dragons, but ‘stone dragons’ can also refer to dragon eggs that
have petrified into stone over time.
The point is, we’ve twice seen the idea that human sacrifice in a fire can wake dragons.
So maybe the fire at Summerhall was a sacrifice to hatch dragon eggs, and King Egg deliberately
burned people.
Since “king’s blood” has special power to wake dragons, King Egg might’ve sacrificed
himself, walking into the fire like Daenerys.
In Book 5, Melisandre wants to sacrifice a king, and then his son, so that “both die
kings” to maximise the magical power to “wake the dragon”.
Maybe King Egg tried the same thing, burning himself and then his son Duncan.
Or since Duncan abdicated, he could’ve tried to burn Jaehaerys instead.
Maybe Egg tried to sacrifice Rhaella, and her unborn child Rhaegar, as the ultimate
terrible sacrifice to wake the dragons, but Dunk intervened and stopped him.
We can only speculate about the details, but given what we know about magic and sacrifice
and dragons, Summerhall looks a lot like a magic sacrifice to hatch dragons.
But is Egg the kind of person who would burn his own family alive?
In the Dunk & Egg stories, Egg is a sweet kid, he’s not mad or cruel.
He only occasionally gets angry and Targaryeny.
But being king changes people.
You have to be ruthless to rule.
When Egg became king, his brother Aemon told him that “It takes a man to rule.
An Aegon, not an Egg”.
“Kill the boy within you”, “and let the man be born”.
Maybe King Egg tried to “kill the boy” at Summerhall, to let dragons be born.
It’s a similar story to Stannis, a king with good intentions who burns people alive
as sacrifices.
He argues that the sacrifice of one child is worth it if it saves the kingdom.
Maybe King Egg thought the same thing.
When Stannis considers burning Mance and his baby to wake a dragon, Aemon says “There
is power in a king’s blood” “and better men than Stannis have done worse things than
this”.
Maybe Aemon is talking about his brother Egg, a good man who did a terrible thing, sacrificing
his family to wake dragons for the realm.
But what could’ve convinced Egg that a magic sacrifice would work?
King Egg’s family was really into prophecy.
Prince Duncan’s wife, Jenny of Oldstones, brought a “woods witch” to court – a
“dwarfish” “albino” woman who was connected to the magic of the old gods.
We meet this this witch forty years later in the main series, where she’s called the
ghost of High Heart.
And she has accurate visions of the future, foreseeing the Red Wedding, and Joffrey’s
poisoning, before they happen.
So this witch is legit – she can see the future.
And she was influential in King Egg’s court – Prince Aerys and Rhaella got married because
this witch said that the prince that was promised, or Azor Ahai, would be born of their line.
Which means that Daenerys or Jon might be the prophesied heroes to save the world from
the white walkers.
Maybe that’s why Prince Duncan abdicated the Throne – so his nephew Aerys, and the
line of Azor Ahai, would inherit the Throne instead.
Some fans suspect that Bloodraven, also connected to the old gods, had something to do with
this.
So.. that’s a whole thing, but we also know that Egg’s brother Aemon and his uncle Aerys
were also interested in prophecy, as well as Daeron with his dragon dreams, and Aerion
with his delusions.
So just like your auntie who’s like a little bit too into astrology, King Egg’s family
were heavily influenced by prophecies and dreams of the future.
So maybe Egg did Summerhall because he or the ghost of High Heart or Daeron, had a prophetic
dream that dragons would hatch from fire at Summerhall.
Problem is, relying on prophecy in this story is dangerous – “Prophecy will bite your
prick off every time”.
Many characters have dreams of the future, especially Targaryens.
And especially dreams about terrible destructive events, like the Doom of Valyria.. and the
Red Wedding – the ghost of High Heart, Daenerys, Patchface, even Theon all have dreams and
visions of the Red Wedding before it happens.
But dreams of the future are often symbolic and abstract, and are often misinterpreted
by the dreamer – like, Melisandre constantly misinterprets her visions to convince herself
that Stannis is the prophesied hero.
She once has a vision of Alys Karstark and convinces herself it's Arya Stark.
The visions are true, but she twists the meaning to see what she wants to see.
Misinterpreting a dream can lead to a character’s downfall – like, in The Mystery Knight,
Daemon dreams of a hatching dragon, so he thinks he’ll get a dragon and win the Throne,
but he misinterpreted the dream, so Daemon fails.
Aemon says that his brothers Egg Daeron and Aerion were all killed by their dreams of
dragons.
Cause Aerion dreamed of transforming into a dragon by drinking wildfire.
Daeron’s dragon dreams drove him to self-destructive drinking.
Maybe Egg’s dragon dreams killed him because, like Daemon and Melisandre and others, he
misinterpreted his visions, and saw what he wanted to see YouTuber JoeMagician argues
that Egg may have had visions of the future of Daenerys hatching dragons from fire, and
Summerhall was Egg’s attempt to recreate this dream, thinking that the vision was about
him.
Because the sacrifices at Summerhall mirror the sacrifices at Daenerys’ fire – King
Egg parallels Khal Drogo, cause a Khal is symbolically like a king.
And Rhaella’s baby Rhaegar mirrors Daenerys’ baby Rhaego, who dies shortly before this
funeral pyre.
The witch Mirri Maz Duur mirrors the woods witch, the ghost of High Heart.
Maybe through the symbolic language of prophetic dreams, Egg saw a king and a princess and
a baby and witch burning on a fire, and saw dragons hatching from the ashes.
He thought this was his destiny, and tried to make it happen by burning himself and his
family, to hatch dragons and save the realm, tragically misled by prophecy like so many
others before him.
JoeMagician speculates that other Targaryens might also have had the same dream of Daenerys’s
fire.
Mad King Aerys tried to burn King’s Landing in a great “funeral pyre”, thinking he
would rise again as a dragon – which sounds a lot like Daenerys rising from her funeral
pyre with dragons.
Aerion might’ve had the same dream to convince him that fire would make him a dragon.
All these Targaryens destroyed themselves thinking that fire would give them dragons
– maybe they all dreamed of Daenerys.
Cause the rebirth of dragons is a powerfully significant magical event, so just like the
Doom of Valyria and the Red Wedding – and Euron Greyjoy’s coming apocalypse – it
sent shockwaves through time, ripples in the dreamscape, bringing prophetic visions to
sensitive individuals, and causing generations of Targaryen madness and fiery catastrophe.
That’s one theory, anyway.
We don’t know if King Egg had visions of the future.
We don’t even know for sure if he deliberately sacrificed people.
But whatever he did to hatch dragons, it failed.
And House Targaryen was left weaker than before.
Egg’s sickly second son Jaehaerys inherited the Throne, then came King Aerys, who was
mad, possibly because of the fire and trauma of Summerhall, then the Targaryens were overthrown
in Robert’s Rebellion.
So was Summerhall just a giant meaningless fuckup that led to the end of the Targaryens?
Or did this death and disaster birth some hope?
In Dunk & Egg, Egg’s brother Daeron has a dream of a dragon dying.
But in the end, it’s not a literal dragon that dies, it’s a metaphorical dragon, Baelor
Targaryen.
Then in The Mystery Knight, Daemon Blackfyre has a dream that a dragon will hatch from
an egg.
But in the end, it’s not a literal dragon that hatches, it’s a metaphor for Egg becoming
a more confident Targaryen prince.
So in prophetic dreams, a dragon doesn’t always mean a literal dragon, it can mean
a Targaryen.
And in the same way, the fire at Summerhall didn’t hatch a literal dragon, but it did
lead to the birth of Rhaegar Targaryen, who is sometimes called a “dragon”.
So in a way, King Egg succeeded in hatching a dragon at Summerhall – just not in the
way he expected.
Author George Martin says he likes prophecies that come true, but in an unexpected way.
And even though Summerhall was a disaster, that sacrifice at the birth of Rhaegar might’ve
set events in motion for Westeros to be saved.
Like his ancestors, Rhaegar was very into prophecy.
At one point, he and Aemon believed that Rhaegar was the prince that was promised, or Azor
Ahai.
Cause the hero is prophesied to be born “amidst smoke and salt”.
Aemon said the smoke was from the fire at Summerhall, and the salt was from the tears
shed for the people who died there.
So maybe the tragedy at Summerhall fulfilled the prophecy to make Rhaegar the hero to save
Of course, Rhaegar did not save the world.
He got killed by Robert Baratheon.
But Rhaegar did probably father Jon Snow, who along with Daenerys, probably will be
the heroes who’ll save the world from the white walkers.
By some interpretations, Rhaegar was the hero Azor Ahai, but Jon and Daenerys and her dragons
are Lightbringer, the fiery sword that will defeat the darkness, born of sacrifice.
So the prophecy works out –the tragedy at Summerhall might have been a necessary sacrifice
to birth the heroes who’ll save Westeros.
Death did pay for life, though the price was terrible.
Rhaegar was “haunted” by the tragedy of Summerhall.
“He was born in grief”, “and that shadow hung over him all his days”.
He would go alone to the ruins of Summerhall, his birthplace, and write sad songs of sorrow
and death.
Some fans speculate that he may have met the ghost of High Heart at Summerhall, and sang
her songs in return for prophetic visions.
Cause in Book 3, the ghost wants music in return for her dreams.
And she always asks for the same song – Jenny’s song, that sad, longing song that Podrick
sings in the tv show.
The song is about the ghost’s friend Jenny of Oldstones, and she weeps as she listens
– she says she “gorged on grief at Summerhall”.
If the ghost’s prophecies are what convinced Egg to burn Summerhall, maybe the ghost feels
guilt as well as grief.
Some fans speculate that Rhaegar wrote Jenny’s song for the ghost of High Heart.
Rhaegar seemed to share that same sense of sadness and doom.
Maybe he understood that the tragedy at Summerhall was a sacrifice, a terrible price to pay for
life in Westeros.
There are other theories about Summerhall.
Like maybe there was a conspiracy, and some other faction caused the disaster.
After all, King Egg had many powerful enemies, like all the lords who hated his laws, who
viewed him as a blood-handed tyrant.
Maybe they chucked some extra wildfire into the mix to kill King Egg.
In Book 4, Marwyn the Mage says that the maesters have a conspiracy against magic, Targaryens
and dragons.
He claims that the maesters somehow caused the extinction of the dragons in the first
place.
We know that maesters “pored” over the remaining dragon eggs – maybe they poisoned
the eggs, to stop them from hatching.
Then when King Egg tried to bring back the dragons, maybe the maesters made sure it failed,
and blew up the Targaryens once and for all.
The Grand Maester at the time was a young Pycelle, and we know he’s not trustworthy
– he betrayed Mad King Aerys, he betrayed Jon Arryn, maybe he betrayed King Egg too.
At the time, a young Tywin Lannister was a cupbearer to King Egg.
And Tywin would’ve hated Egg’s pro-peasant laws as much as anyone.
And Pycelle is loyal to Tywin – so maybe these guys worked together to make sure the
Summerhall fire killed Egg – a cheeky bit of regicide to kick off their life-long alliance.
And maybe a young Mad Aerys was in on it.
He and Tywin were childhood friends.
And King Egg’s death did move Aerys closer to inheriting the Throne.
Each one of this trio of villainous teenagers had potential motives to kill Egg, and they
were all in the king’s inner circle.
Maybe they worked together to cause Summerhall.
Or maybe the Faceless Men did it.
It’s hinted that the Faceless Men caused the fiery Doom of Valyria, which killed most
of the dragonlords four hundred years ago – maybe they also caused the fiery Summerhall
which killed most of the Targaryens, to stop the return of dragons.
The Faceless Men are master assassins who “take great care to make their killings”
look like “natural deaths” – maybe the Faceless Men used the Summerhall fire to hide
their murder.
Maybe the Faceless Men were hired by Maelys Blackfyre and the Ninepenny Kings.
They wanted King Egg’s throne, and they certainly didn’t want him to get dragons.
Or maybe Bloodraven did it, working with the ghost of High Heart.
They’re both connected to the magic of the old gods.
Maybe Bloodraven sent the ghost her prophetic dreams, and made Summerhall happen, cause
he wanted a sacrifice to make Rhaegar Azor Ahai, or cause he wanted to ensure that the
line of Azor Ahai would inherit the Throne.
Bloodraven has repeatedly shown that he’s willing to kill his relatives for the sake
of the Targaryen bloodline.
Maybe Bloodraven’s lover Shiera Seastar started the fire, and now she wears the mask
of Quaithe to hide her arson-burned face.
Or maybe it was Daario disguised as Ser Pounce with a book of matches and a can of gasoline.
We can speculate all day.
There’s lots of possibilities for elaborate conspiracies, but there’s little evidence
in the books.
Summerhall is the end of the story of Dunk and Egg, it might be the final novella in
their series.
So you’d think the tragedy at Summerhall will be about be about their character arcs,
their choices.
Author George Martin writes about “the human heart in conflict with itself”.
Like Jon Snow’s conflict between his love for Ygritte and his duty to the Watch.
George Martin loves this kind of tragic heart-wrenching drama, and you can imagine something similar
at Summerhall.
Like Egg would be conflicted between his love for his family, and the need for sacrifice
to wake dragons for the realm.
And Dunk would be conflicted between his loyalty to Egg and his duty as a knight to protect
the innocent.
They could have a dramatic confrontation amidst the flames of Summerhall, the two friends
divided in the end like Frodo and Sam on Mount Doom, with Dunk desperately trying to stop
Egg from sacrificing innocent lives to the fire.
Maybe in the end, Dunk has to kill Egg, to stop the burning, like Jaime and Aerys years
later.
[It’s like poetry it rhymes].
That kind of personal drama at Summerhall could give a fitting and emotionally devastating
end to The Tales of Dunk and Egg.
While making the tragedy really about a maester conspiracy or the Faceless Men instead might
undermine the personal, emotional climax of Dunk and Egg’s story.
Ultimately, dragons and magic are a metaphor for power and ambition, and the dangers of
power and ambition.
Like Icarus flying to the sun, too much ambition can get you burned and cause your downfall.
And that’s what the Targaryens are all about.
Their ambition and powerlust forged the Seven Kingdoms into a united realm – but they
also burned thousands of people in wars and disasters and madness.
Summerhall is a warning against the dangers of power, ambition, and dreams, showing how
even a good king like Egg, or Stannis, or Daenerys, with the best intentions, can ultimately,
tragically, end in atrocity.
Fire can be the power to do great things.
But “Too much light can hurt the eyes”, and “fire burns”.
King Egg searched the world for knowledge on Valyrian dragon-breeding.
But we don’t have to go to Asshai – cause we can learn knowledge and skills on Skillshare.
Skillshare is an online learning site with thousands of classes in art, design, business,
and even cooking eggs.. with fire – no human sacrifice required.
There’re even classes by Kurzgesagt on video editing in After Effects, which is what we
use.
There’s some really good stuff here.
And the first thousand people to click the link below can get a free trial of Skillshare
Premium.
After the trial, it’s less than ten bucks a month for access to all these classes.
So learn something new, and help Alt Shift X, by trying Skillshare.
Thanks for watching.
Links to the artists and references are below.
Thanks to Patrons Cami Hunt, Kyle Lim, mario_incandenza, (at)Surdo, Blake Dale, Ashik Ishtiak, Harith
Muthanna Alqurtass, and Bambuslocke.
Cheers.
If nothing else, the tragedy of Summerhall is a good example of why you should never
bring high explosives to a baby shower.
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