I believe Rhaegar was supposed to be sacrificed at Summerhall. Combine the facts that the successful hatching of dragons was achieved through Rhaego's sacrifice at the day of his birth (contractions had begun) and Rhaegar's birth at the exact day of Summerhall and it isn't a stretch to make the connection.
I posted this once before on Heresy and Matthew had this to add:
I think you may very well have just figured out the ending to the Dunk and Egg novels. We learn in the WB that Egg spent the last years of his life researching the birth of dragons, and that the (supposed) purpose of the gathering at Summerhall was to celebrate the impending birth of Rhaegar. We also know that the few survivors don't talk about what happened, and that the few people who did survive would have died "but for the valor of the Lord Commander."
Maybe this is why GRRM is being so tight-lipped about Summerhall; it wasn't just an attempt at hatching dragons gone wrong, it went wrong because Aegon V actually did figure out how to wake dragons from stone, went full Targ Prophecy Crazy, and Dunk ultimately went against Egg's wishes, and saved Rhaella and Rhaegar -- perhaps being forced to kill Egg in the process.
What chapters should I read to get a better idea? The Summerhall stuff is pretty hazy for me. Is it in Storm somewhere, or is this from the novellas? I've only read the first ones.
“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
I think all the stuff on Summerhall is spread throughout many chapters and books. Martin is very coy about it. So the best thing to read would probably be the wiki page.
But what we know is pretty straightforward: The Targaryens wanted to hatch dragons on that day in Summerhall (their summer seat) but something went wrong and a lot of people died in the flames. Among the dead were Aegon IV., Prince Duncan, Lord Commander Ser Duncan the Tall and Jenny of Oldstones.
The World book added this:
FROM THE HISTORY OF ARCHMAESTER GYLDAYN
… the blood of the dragon gathered in one … … seven eggs, to honor the seven gods, though the king’s own septon had warned … … pyromancers … … wild fire … … flames grew out of control … towering … burned so hot that … … died, but for the valor of the Lord Comman …
Post by whitewolfstark on Aug 2, 2015 17:00:12 GMT
I agree that this would seem to be the case, and it's also why I'd argue that the Targaryens didn't stop the practice of First Night on Dragonstone, as they then used those "dragon seeds" to birth dragons, hence the name "dragon seeds".
I agree that this would seem to be the case, and it's also why I'd argue that the Targaryens didn't stop the practice of First Night on Dragonstone, as they then used those "dragon seeds" to birth dragons, hence the name "dragon seeds".
To add on to this thought, I will say that I don't think Rhaegar was to be the sacrificial Targ at Summerhall - I believe there was another child of the appropriate bloodline that would serve the purpose.
OK, the crazy train is about to totally leave the rails here, apologies in advance. Bear with me while I attempt to glue multiple cracked pots together.
Back on W after the World Book came out and revealed more background about Aerys II's reign, I noted something unusual. I'll just repost it here to save myself some typing.
(Kicking off with post from a person to whom I was responding)
Also, on a side note, most Targaryen kings were players, had many bastards, the family is sort of famous for having bastards. Aerys, in his youth, was just as blonde and handsome as any of them, why is he the only one who cannot have a bastard?
Was musing a bit on this, and while I agree that royal bastardy does not seem to be unusual, what DOES seem to be unusual is the total absence of living ones via Aerys II.
Of course we are no strangers to Royal Bastards scattered throughout the realm: we have recount of Aegon’s numerous bastards Great and otherwise, other Targ products from the wrong side of the blanket here and there, current-universe knowledge of Robert’s brood, etc. The WB suggests that the Mad King had his share of mistresses from all lands and walks as well. However, there are no mentions of any offspring, even though his infidelity career seemingly spanned 13 years and purportedly didn’t end until after the death of Jaehaerys in 274.
The only children we’re told of (by a pro-Baratheon/pro-Lannister maester to boot) are those produced by Rhaella. Furthermore, it seems odd to me that there is no mention of the mistresses either, highborn or common, save for the one that he had executed upon suspicion of poisoning Jaehaerys in 274. Joanna is the only paramour we know by name, and the saving grace of her marriage to Tywin is probably what earned her a mere dismissal from court instead of another grimmer fate.
In addition, there is the still-unexplained throwaway line in AGOT by Ned to Robert regarding standing up to the Mad King to “put an end to the murder of children.” (There is also a show mention by Robert of Aerys “murdering women and babies” but I use that for reference support only.) The WB notes that by 270 Aerys believed that Rhaella was being unfaithful and all her failed pregnancies happened because the gods would not want a bastard to sit the Iron Throne.
Based on the above, it is my conclusion that someone in the Targaryen royal family (and I suspect Aerys himself) was ordering/overseeing the murder of his bastard children, and possibly their mothers as well. (We see this repeated with Cersei in regard to Robert’s spawn too.) Not only are these bastard children an embarrassment to the IT, they are a danger to it….especially given Rhaegar as the only heir thus far. Should something happen to him…..well, we know the Dance, so to speak.
Now this exchange was primarily related to the possibility of A+J = T, but after thinking about dragonseeds, I believe it might be pertinent to Summerhall as well.
First, let's back up to talk about the Targ family circa 259.
Aemon is at the Wall, his sisters married into other families and produced who knows how many half-Targ kids. Aerion's infant son and any of his descendants are long out of the picture. There's Egg, and his sons Duncan, Jaehaerys, Daeron, Shaera, and Rhaelle. Duncan and Jenny of Oldstones are not said to have children, and Duncan is out of the line of succession now anyway. Daeron is gay. Even more problematic, Daeron is dead. Rhaelle is already married to Ormund Baratheon and has borne Steffon, who is now 13. Jaehaerys has been married to Shaera, and had only Aerys and Rhaella as children. The woods witch prophesied that TPTWP would come of their line; Jaehaerys forced them to marry because of it. Rhaegar is the LAST child of this particular line of Targaryen blood.
By 259, Aerys and Rhaella are the only two Targs left that are young enough to have children of full Targaryen blood. I'm dubious that any of the seven Targs at this point in time were going to voluntarily sacrifice the last of their "pure" line in a dragon-hatching ceremony.
HOWEVER....we do know that these nutty ceremonies DO require a sacrifice....and the ones we've heard about so far involve king's blood. What's a good source of king's blood if you don't have any immediate family members around that you can use?
Dragonseeds.
Had there been any half-Targaryen bastards floating about in the brothels or slums of King's Landing or outposts of Dragonstone, I have no doubt that their existence would be of utmost interest to any member of the royal family looking to bring back dragons via the use of blood magic. I mean, the trick is certainly at the forefront of Mel's mind with regard to Stannis, right?
Gotta stop here as I'm leaving for the day, but I'll come back to finish my thought and start connecting the dots to Aerys.
Brilliant stuff, which sheds a whole new light on Aemon's final words of advice to Jon Snow:
Jon was tired. I need sleep. He had been up half the night poring over maps, writing letters, and making plans with Maester Aemon. Even after stumbling into his narrow bed, rest had not come easily. He knew what he would face today, and found himself tossing restlessly as he brooded on Maester Aemon's final words. "Allow me to give my lord one last piece of counsel," the old man had said, "the same counsel that I once gave my brother when we parted for the last time. He was three-and-thirty when the Great Council chose him to mount the Iron Throne. A man grown with sons of his own, yet in some ways still a boy. Egg had an innocence to him, a sweetness we all loved. Kill the boy within you, I told him the day I took ship for the Wall. It takes a man to rule. An Aegon, not an Egg. Kill the boy and let the man be born." The old man felt Jon's face. "You are half the age that Egg was, and your own burden is a crueler one, I fear. You will have little joy of your command, but I think you have the strength in you to do the things that must be done. Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born."
Kill the boy and let the man be born. If 'only death may pay for life', and dragons are fire made flesh (living Fire), it makes sense that kingsblood is necessary to wake the mounts of the dragon-kings. Mel believes it would work. Dany proved it does, with Khal-King Drogo, and his stallion-prince.
The parallel with Rhaegar and the tragedy of Summerhall is quite intriguing.
What is even more intriguing is what this might implicate for "the prince that was promised". Kill the boy?
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
ill the boy and let the man be born. If 'only death may pay for life', and dragons are fire made flesh (living Fire), it makes sense that kingsblood is necessary to wake the mounts of the dragon-kings. Mel believes it would work. Dany proved it does, with Khal-King Drogo, and his stallion-prince.
Exactly. However, Summerhall didn't seem to be successful in the waking of an actual dragon....the winged reptilian variety, anyway. I wonder if this is because they didn't have the secret ingredient: the blood of TWO kings. "First the father, then the son, so both die kings." The blood was there, of course, but the succession was wrong if the prophecy order was right - JAEHAERYS should have died, not Duncan, who had already abdicated his inheritance.
Thus we add further ingredients to my crackpot stew:
1) the Summerhall Seven tried to sacrifice a Targaryen dragonseed - possibly one of the local "fruits", or perhaps another bastard from Essos. ::: "Why is it that it's always the innocent who suffer, when you high Lords play your game of thrones?"
2) Someone else knew the real recipe for the perfect dragon souffle, one that would rise and not fall again, and tried to make that happen (or not happen, depending on how you look at it and whether or not you believe Duncan's abdication was public knowledge) via "accidental fire". My bet is on the Faceless Men for myriad reasons, but that's another thread. Oh, and the dragon eggs seemed to have vanished too. Hmm, wonder who did that?
3) Aerys was trying to do this in private...using his own dragonseed that he was producing while cheating on Rhaella for 13ish years. I bet for every child that Rhaella conceived between Rhaegar and Viserys, there was an Aerys bastard sacrificed for it. The missing mistresses? The surprising lack of bragging by people who have a drop o'dragon blood via Aerys in them? Tywin's mystery trip tp Lys while Hand? Yeah. Aerys was looking for his fruits. It meant death for one to be found.
4) Speculation: something happened with this around the time of Viserys' birth - something that was a bit more public than intended. The high lords like Jon Arryn/Hoster Tully/Rickard Stark found out about it, and plotting began. "Why did we rise against Aerys Targaryen, if not to put an end to the murder of children?"
5) Further speculation: Aerys was going to pass the sacrificial torch on to Rhaegar, too. Father-son bonding moment: "So son, that's the birds and the bees, and how babies are made. Now let's talk about how to turn them into dragons."
6) Rhaegar wasn't pleased with Aerys' methods and decides to do something about it. Or, conversely, he is totally into it but wants to go the extra mile using the real recipe, the Cruroris Rex Duo, which he learned about from his books. I can't decide which path to take and I'm too tired to lay out each scenario right now, but the shared elements are blood magic, the blood of two kings, and a child.
Note: the MISSING element is the willingness of the person to pay the price - perhaps the price of the thing they hold most dear in the world - to make the magic happen. Dany paid it...and paid and paid and paid again. And Dany has three dragons.
More later if anyone is interested and not ready to have me committed.
To add a bit more to the crackpot souffle, what if it worked? Not hatching a Dragon, but instilling Rhaegar with the seed needed to sire tptwp? What if his son Aegon was that prince?
Huge consequences for him if Varys' Aegon is real.
Huge consequences for Gregor Clegane if not...
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
ill the boy and let the man be born. If 'only death may pay for life', and dragons are fire made flesh (living Fire), it makes sense that kingsblood is necessary to wake the mounts of the dragon-kings. Mel believes it would work. Dany proved it does, with Khal-King Drogo, and his stallion-prince.
Exactly. However, Summerhall didn't seem to be successful in the waking of an actual dragon....the winged reptilian variety, anyway. I wonder if this is because they didn't have the secret ingredient: the blood of TWO kings. "First the father, then the son, so both die kings." The blood was there, of course, but the succession was wrong if the prophecy order was right - JAEHAERYS should have died, not Duncan, who had already abdicated his inheritance.
Thus we add further ingredients to my crackpot stew:
1) the Summerhall Seven tried to sacrifice a Targaryen dragonseed - possibly one of the local "fruits", or perhaps another bastard from Essos. ::: "Why is it that it's always the innocent who suffer, when you high Lords play your game of thrones?"
2) Someone else knew the real recipe for the perfect dragon souffle, one that would rise and not fall again, and tried to make that happen (or not happen, depending on how you look at it and whether or not you believe Duncan's abdication was public knowledge) via "accidental fire". My bet is on the Faceless Men for myriad reasons, but that's another thread. Oh, and the dragon eggs seemed to have vanished too. Hmm, wonder who did that?
3) Aerys was trying to do this in private...using his own dragonseed that he was producing while cheating on Rhaella for 13ish years. I bet for every child that Rhaella conceived between Rhaegar and Viserys, there was an Aerys bastard sacrificed for it. The missing mistresses? The surprising lack of bragging by people who have a drop o'dragon blood via Aerys in them? Tywin's mystery trip tp Lys while Hand? Yeah. Aerys was looking for his fruits. It meant death for one to be found.
4) Speculation: something happened with this around the time of Viserys' birth - something that was a bit more public than intended. The high lords like Jon Arryn/Hoster Tully/Rickard Stark found out about it, and plotting began. "Why did we rise against Aerys Targaryen, if not to put an end to the murder of children?"
5) Further speculation: Aerys was going to pass the sacrificial torch on to Rhaegar, too. Father-son bonding moment: "So son, that's the birds and the bees, and how babies are made. Now let's talk about how to turn them into dragons."
6) Rhaegar wasn't pleased with Aerys' methods and decides to do something about it. Or, conversely, he is totally into it but wants to go the extra mile using the real recipe, the Cruroris Rex Duo, which he learned about from his books. I can't decide which path to take and I'm too tired to lay out each scenario right now, but the shared elements are blood magic, the blood of two kings, and a child.
Note: the MISSING element is the willingness of the person to pay the price - perhaps the price of the thing they hold most dear in the world - to make the magic happen. Dany paid it...and paid and paid and paid again. And Dany has three dragons.
More later if anyone is interested and not ready to have me committed.
Yes I like this a lot BB! You always have such interesting theories!
To add a bit more to the crackpot souffle, what if it worked? Not hatching a Dragon, but instilling Rhaegar with the seed needed to sire tptwp? What if his son Aegon was that prince?
Yep, was actually going to mention that Rhaegar got "something" from the deaths at Summerhall. He's called The Last Dragon, after all. There's no way that those Targs could have died around all those eggs and around Rhaegar entering the world and not have some kind of magical transference take place.
Are you talking about raising the stone dragons at dragonstone, or fossilized dragon eggs like Dany had?
“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Okay, so we know we're already well into crackpot territory... Here's where I was going...
If Rhaegar was imbued with the ability to sire the prince that was promised at Summerhall, and Aegon was that son, then:
Gregor dashed his head against the wall and killed the prince that was promised. But did that silence his song of ice and fire? I would think not, given the title of the series. So, I would crackpottedly suggest that Ser Gregor Clegane cannot die, because Aegon's death paid for his magical life as Robert Strong of the kingsguard. (insert Ser Duncan the Tall's death as a kingsguard at Summerhall parallel here...) So, another tall knight, of the kingsguard, is now imbued with the tragic magic of Summerhall. Would GRRM mindfuck us with the Mountain/Robert Strong being tptwp? And on top of that, with Cersei/Qyburn controlling him? I certainly wouldn't put it past him.
Gregor dashed the head of some other boy against the wall, and the prince that was promised has just landed in Westeros, ready for his Inigo Montoya moment.
In either scenario, one of these men should have the ability to wake/mount a dragon. Imagine Cersei with a dragonmounted protector. Holy damn. Imagine clueless Young Griff with a dragon. Another Quent?
Are you talking about raising the stone dragons at dragonstone, or fossilized dragon eggs like Dany had?
Seems possible to me, but I'd lean towards stone dragons at dragonstone over the introduction of more dragon eggs. Mel certainly believes that king's blood would do the trick. (real)Aegon would have it, unGregor would have spilled it.
As an aside... I don't think the dragon eggs were fossilized. I think people forgot how hard and stone-like they are, is all. The Cheesemonger told us the years turned them to stone, but considering how tough dragon scales and bone are, I think he was wrong.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
I like the dragonseed theory with Aerys etc. but it seems to me that Aerys failed with his bastards to bring back dragons.
I think as long as there were still living dragons around you didn't have to sacrifice unborn Targaryens to hatch dragons - the soul transfer happened naturally. Every once in a while a Targaryen or maybe a Targaryen paramour birthed a twisted dragonspwan stillborn which soul had transferred to an egg that than was able to hatch.
It was only after the last dragon died that it stopped happening and Aemon speaks thus of "eggs that would not hatch". If you believe Daario to be a faceless men you could argue that his mission is to impregnate Daenerys so that they can hatch the egg they got from Euron.
But without dragons around you need more - a ritual and a sacrifice - to hatch dragons and maybe you need exactly the right blood too (so no bastards). The Targaryens after Aegon the Dragonbane certainly seemed obsessed with finding the right woman (bloodline) to marry their heir to. I think the mistake they made is to think it matters which woman you marry to a Targaryen male instead of which male to marry to a Targaryen female. The true reasons for Targaryen incest is not to keep the bloodline pure but to keep the female line in the family (which btw. disappears with the Blackfyres). I sometimes wonder if Daenerys is the Blackfyre and Aegon the real Targaryen.
Anyway, to stop with the rambling I think Rhaegar was ultimately not sacrificed because someone prevented it (Varys or Ser Duncan) from happening.
Note: the MISSING element is the willingness of the person to pay the price - perhaps the price of the thing they hold most dear in the world - to make the magic happen. Dany paid it...and paid and paid and paid again. And Dany has three dragons.
Yep, was actually going to mention that Rhaegar got "something" from the deaths at Summerhall. He's called The Last Dragon, after all. There's no way that those Targs could have died around all those eggs and around Rhaegar entering the world and not have some kind of magical transference take place.
But if Aerys "paid the price"--he made the sacrifice--why would the power go to Rhaegar? Dany got dragons out of her sacrifice. What if Aerys got Dany out of Summerhall? Just delayed.
Rhaegar is called the last dragon. And he had many good qualities (some not so good). But Dany is the "unburnt." She's the one who has dragons. So, what is Rhaegar's been thinking he got something out of Summerhall--and been wrong the whole time. It was his future sister. Not him.
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Oscar Wilde.