In his dreams, the river was still a flame, and demons danced
upon the waters with fiery whips in their hands, while men
blackened and burned beneath the lash.
Mother, have mercy, Davos prayed.
Save me, gentle Mother, save us all.
My luck is gone, and my sons. He was weeping freely now, salt
tears streaming down his cheeks. The fire took it all.
The fire. Perhaps it was only wind blowing
against the rock, or the sound of the sea on the shore, but for
instant Davos Seaworth heard her answer.
You called the fire, she whispered.
Her voice is faint as the sound of waves in a seashell, sad and
soft. You burned us.
Burned us, burned us. No, this episode isn't
mistitled. That's just another Davos quote
that we'd like as a parallel to Summer Hall.
It even refers to Davos's luck running out, the same of which
could be said for Aegon the Fortunate, also known as Aegon
the Unlikely, also known as Egg. At this point he could be called
Aegon the Unfortunate. This could be how the Ghost of
High Heart feels for example, or Jenny of Old Stones if she
survived. It's also a reminder of the salt
and smoke associated with these well known and OFT overlapping
prophecies, prints that was promised and A's or A high, both
of which carry significant links to our topic today.
We won't cover those theories in their entirety, though.
Our main focus is, of course, the aftermath of Summerhall.
Why didn't it work? Who tried to capitalize on the
instability? What impact did the event have
on the survivors? What impact does it have on the
current storyline? I'll answer that one now by
saying a lot. We'll answer in more detail and
get to the rest of those questions as we move forward.
Yeah, so hello and welcome to another episode of History of
Westeros podcast, a podcast dedicated to George RR Martin's
A Song of Ice and Fire, a book series, as well as HBO's Game of
Thrones. Today's episode is focused on
Summer Hall, and thus it has spoilers for all of the Duncan
Egg novellas as well as the World of Ice and Fire.
That's. Right, and this is Part 2 of our
Patreon Voters episode, the second such episode.
Well, third such episode, second such topic, more bang for your
buck, I suppose you guys got more than you expected, more
than we expected. We did not know this topic would
get so big. Obviously took us longer than we
expected, but it's also longer than we expected.
So you know, the the, the extra time was put to good use.
Now one thing about a quick note about Patreon.
A lot of you out there have subscribed to us on Patreon,
have supported us on Patreon, but some people aren't aware
that there's an internal messaging system on Patreon and
you may not have be aware that you've got a message from us.
So just just in case you're not aware, check that out.
Respond if you if you want to, if not, oh.
No problem. That reminds me of another
thing. If you're commenting on YouTube,
sometimes we get comments from people and there's no reply
button. We cannot reply to you.
We're not sure why if it's a setting you have, but if you're
asking us a direct question, please try to check that we'd
like to reply. Yeah, that's it's we sometimes
it's a great question and we just not much we can do about
it. Also, before we get started,
thanks to 1st Sword, Joshua Hayes Cutter also called Joshua
the Raw. Now imagine a family reunion
timed so that it coincides with the birth of a new addition to
the family. Well, that's pretty cool.
It's a good idea actually. But to have that experience
shared by more members of the family could build more unity.
Yeah, well, depending on the. Family.
Yeah, it could make things worse in some cases, but instead of
the planned entertainment, since we don't have a real life
parallel for a dragon egg hatching ceremony yet, the about
to be great granddad burns the whole party down and a lot of
people die. Though our irreverence doesn't
exactly do it justice, this is, understandably the stuff
nightmares and traumas are made out of.
Well, I mean, you might expect, you know, everyone to lead
normal lives eventually after some sort of lengthy grieving
process, but you wouldn't really be surprised to find that one or
more even all of the survivors were haunted by the experience
their entire life. It can potentially infect all
aspects of life, their relationships with each other,
with everyone else, possibly their business dealings.
It might cause nightmares, sleeping problems, anxiety,
other things. I'm not really qualified to be
too specific about being as how. I'm not a psychologist.
And this is the royal family that we're talking about.
Unity within the royal family is more important than with other
families because without it the chance of civil war is very much
increased. Right, but obviously that didn't
work out. Unity or not, nor anything
resembling such was achieved by Summer Hall.
And certainly no literal Dragons were came by House Targaryen
either. Civil war did come, and a mere
24 years after Summer Hall, Robert Baratheon was at the
throne. And even if Robert had lost,
evidence shows that Prince Rhaegar may have tried to
overthrow his father. For good reasons, of course, but
still the point is that war and or rebellion loomed for many
reasons, and Summerhall's shadow on the royal family was a
significant contributor. It had a lot to do with
Rhaegar's dangerous obsession with prophecy and quite possibly
his father Aries his obsession with wildfire.
The former may have started Robert Rebellion while the
latter almost destroyed King's Landing.
Instead, it destroyed the honor of Jaime Lannister, who saved
the city by killing the pyromancers who intended to
carry out the Mad King's final orders to ignite the wildfire
catches. He also slew the man who gave
the orders, and Sir Jamie became the King Slayer.
Yeah, Jamie believed that he would be lauded for this act,
and he was mistaken. Aries believed that he would
rise from the ashes of King's Landing as a dragon, and, well,
probably mistaken. Yeah, probably.
Jury's out there. He might still calm.
Might have worked, we don't know.
Again, I'm no psychologist, but I'm pretty sure the technical
term is TMU, which stands for That's Messed Up.
Now, as we've said in this episode, we're going to be
dealing with the aftermath and fallout, with particular focus
on the characters and how they were impacted by Summerhall.
Because the tragedy had many indirect and or subtle effects
on people like Aries and Rhaegar of course, but also on some of
the lesser known figures who are still important like Raela, the
ghost of High Heart and the Kingsguard.
This episode endeavors to show how one event can impact many
people across several generations.
The domino effect? True karma.
We'll start with Part 1, the day after.
The collective expectations from the Targaryens for Summerhall
were, well, rather lofty actually.
They expected a dragon or 7A newborn son who might be the
Prince that was promised, and that nobody would mess with
them. Fail.
Yeah, fail. Instead of fulfilled
expectations, they had aftermath.
Just try to picture the scene when the worst had just passed,
when the survivors have made it out.
Moments later, the castle's probably still burning a short
distance away, while the survivors are probably huddled
close together, maybe in small groups.
Baby Rhaegar is probably wailing.
Depending on how it happened, there might be some confusion.
Blame, anger, fear, surely sorrow, a lot of shock.
Yeah, the the fire would also still be burning, probably, as
we're told by Helene the pyromancer.
Once it takes fire, the substance will burn fiercely
until it is no more. Yeah, so I think that most or
all of the survivors would be wondering just what went wrong,
unless it was clear from having seen enough of it.
Maybe a few others would be wondering why it didn't work.
Yeah, well, we know that George RR Martin basically says Danny's
hatching was a miracle of sorts. But besides the general
craziness inherent in trying to match match hatch magical fire
breathing creatures from fossilized eggs, we know that
magic wasn't in season back then.
See our episode on the Comet Religions and Magic Part 1 for
more on that. So a nice blunt answer for why
didn't it work? Well, there was no miracle this
time. So then that raises the question
of where did everyone go after this?
Well, the Royals probably gathered together and found
somewhere close by to rest. Then they'd have likely soon
made their way to King's Landing.
Because of course, one of the biggest immediate effects was
that Jaharis became the new king, so he'd have to get to
King's Landing to be crowned, to make it official and all.
They may have rushed back quickly before news of the
calamities spread too. I mean, they may have been a
little exposed and unguarded. And in Part 1, we speculated
that the Kingsguard was likely pared down, and maybe even
completely. Yeah, so so Prince Aries became
heir to the throne, and no one yet knew what they had their
hands on with him. Baby Rhaegar was born very close
to the crown, coming only after his father of course, and he had
just become Crown Prince and Lord of Dragonstone.
So baby Rhaegar 2 steps away from the throne right away.
Yeah, Barristan perceived the Ghost of High Heart is dead from
Summerall, but obviously he's wrong on that count.
So this may mean that she ran off immediately after, you know,
the tragedy. And that seems pretty likely,
especially if Jenny died there. Ghost of High Heart seems to
feel overwhelming grief over the event, but the greater portion
of it is for Jenny. Yeah.
So is this level of pain what caused such universal silence on
the topic? Davos's memories of wildfire
give us a glimpse into the mind of a witness.
This may explain why some of the survivors had a hard time
speaking about it. It was just too awful.
But could there be more to it? Definitely possible.
Maester Gill Dane wrote about it eventually, but it appears he
had no interest in making it well known to anyone.
His work was discovered after his death.
We speculated that he might have waited to put his account to
paper until all the other witnesses were dead.
Still relevant here. Perhaps the truth was
embarrassing, right? Or would it be perceived as
damaging to the perception of the new king or his heir, the
future mad king, which we talked about the possibility that he
somehow started the fire. No evidence of that, but it's
certainly. Possible.
If Aries somehow had something to do with the fire breaking
out, that would be something to keep quiet from the royal
family. Wouldn't want that nose getting
out because, well, that is embarrassing.
Whatever the case, the possibility that Jerry's had a
motive for enforcing a silence is definitely intriguing.
But of course, the basic details would get out soon.
It can't keep that secret. Yeah, the king was dead, along
with many others, and some are always just gone.
King Daron, the second Symbol of Peace, would become a curse.
And the clock began to wind down.
For House Targaryen. This is terrible news for the
commoners who suffer the most when peace is disturbed.
But it's worse than that. It was also clear that Aegon the
Unlikely's dreams of reform, of greater rights for the commoners
and fewer for the Lords, were as dead as he was.
His son Joharis was intelligent, clever and capable, but he was
also said to lack his father's strength of will.
And he was a bit of of a conservative to boot.
So even if he had been capable of pushing his father's reforms,
he probably didn't even want to. Yeah.
That wasn't in his. That wasn't something he wanted
to, probably. Besides, who has time for reform
when an invasion looms? Meili's the Monstrous, backed by
the rest of the Band of Nine, was coming, and the War of 9
Penny Kings was about to begin. Part 2.
Jaharius ascends. Black fires descend.
Sometimes it's the little things that matter most.
Jaharius's coronation, which would have happened later, if
perhaps much later if or never without the tragedy of Summer
Hall, saw many important guests attempt.
Here comes the domino effect. One in particular either started
a relationship or at least left a deep impression on the new
Crown Prince. That night the Aries or Jarius
became king is rumored to be the same night Aries Targaryen had
his first affair. Maybe only affair with Joanna
Lannister who came to court for the coronation and stayed to be
1 of Rayela's ladies in waiting. Now, Aries developed a deserved
reputation as a womanizer, so it's pretty easy and probably
correct. Chalk this up is nothing more
complicated than that. But considering how soon after
Summerhall this was, possibly it was lust or maybe seeking solace
and. We know his marriage wasn't
happy. I suppose a handsome Prince with
a legit sobstroke can charm most maidens.
There's that. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I have to say my whole family died.
Yeah, he's got to take me, sleep with me tonight.
My whole family was just killed. And plus I'm the Crown Prince.
Yeah. Whatever the truth though, the
bottom line is well known. Arias is lust for Joanna.
His crude comments and his liberties during the betting
were collectively a major part of the eventual decline and
fallout between Tywin and Aries, who had been great friends for a
long time. Indeed, Tywin and Aries got to
know each other at a very young age, and apparently this
friendship developed quickly. The two were also tight with
young Stefan Baratheon at the time, Air to Storm's End and a
page at King's Landing. Like Tywin?
Eventually they all became Squires and at some point Aries
would have gone off with his family to Summer Hall and come
back. Well, was he different?
Did he tell Tywin and Stefon Stefan was half Targaryen
himself? It's even possible he was there,
but either way, it's interesting to consider the Tywin of all
people might be one of the few to know what happened at Summer.
Hall yeah, it's easy to forget how close they were as kids and
1516 year olds they don't keep a lot of secrets when they're.
From their best perhaps being Tywin and Aries whispering
secret saying about girl. It's a weird picture.
Very weird. I don't know which one.
It's weirder to picture Aries to her Tywin.
Passing notes in class. Meanwhile though, news of the
coronation would have spread as he and as he was 34 years old
when crowned. Surely it would be well known
that Jaharius the Second was a sickly and unmartial king.
That was common knowledge by then.
To focus on this too much would be to underestimate him.
But to the Savage Mele's the monstrous who took control of
the Golden Company through force, it may have seemed the
perfect opportunity. He really seems like a man who
emphasized strength over mud. Though males likely would have
invaded anyway. Still, this may have given him
and his allies more confident. And when when your allies have
more confidence, they give you more support, which may be more
money, more troops, more new allies that are invested in the
war effort. Yeah.
Thanks Summerhall, he may have said.
The 9 Penny Kings had landed in the step stones and were heading
towards Westeros quickly and the new king responded.
Drawing on his father's plans, His Grace put aside his grief,
called his Lords bannerman, and resolved to meet the 9 Penny
Kings upon the Stepstones, choosing to take the war to them
rather than awaiting their landing on the shores of the
Seven Kingdom. Now along the way a part of the
war efforts, I suppose he would have replaced those whatever
members of the Kingsguard killed at Summerhall though surely one
or two would have remained to guard the few new surviving
members of House Targaryen. Except Prince Aries who was with
Tywin and Stefan and they fought in the war specifically.
Again, though, given how dangerous the war was, we're
going to guess that the Kingsguard stayed close to Aries
because they're so few. Targaryens, yeah.
So the commander of the Westerosi armies was Hand of the
King, Lord Orman Baratheon, who is young Stefan's father and
brother-in-law of the King, but he was killed by males himself
early in the war. The new Lord, the new young Lord
Commander of the Kingsguard was Sarah Gerald Hightower who we
all know and he took over command of the Westerosi armies.
So one would expect that had he not died at Summerhall and Meili
still invaded. But this would have been Sarah
Duncan the Tall in command. Dunk could have had a shot at
taking down yet another Black Fire rebellion.
Yeah, he would be like the guy who like beat 3 at least three
of the Black Fire instead of only, you know, 1 1/2 or two
depending on how you count it. But instead it would be another
future Lord Commander, Sir Baraston, who slew Meilis the
Monstrous and ended the threat of the 9 Penny King's ambitions
towards Westeros. Nice of Dunk to share the glory
by dying. Yeah, and making way.
Yeah, now this urn Barristan a spot in the King Guard as well
as in the history books. We suppose he replaced some
other Kingsguard killed on the Stepstones, but it's possible
that Aries had just not finished naming new Kingsguard when war
broke out. Yeah, we have this notion
because it seems like Barristan would have already been in the
Kingsguard by it was a little puzzling to me when I noticed
this. He was knighted at age 16 by
King Egon the 5th himself immediately after Barristan.
One attorney that saw him defeat Duncan the Small and Duncan the
Tall. And it was Duncan the Small who
had given Barristan his nickname the Bold six years prior.
So the point is that King Jairus knew who this guy was.
He was a very high profile up and coming knight who had ties
to the royal family through his deeds, so it was a little odd to
me that he wasn't already in in the Kingsguard.
There might be some reason for that.
A conspicuous figure Barristan was.
Yeah, Barristan plays a surprisingly important role in
this episode as well, despite not having been at Summer.
However, he was a witness to a lot of what came shortly after
and a few things that came before, such as the Marys.
The Marys, the marriage I made that mistake when practicing to
Marius of Aried, the marriage of Aries and Raela, which he
described to Danny as suck. I saw your father and your
mother wed as well. Forgive me, but there was no
fondness there, and the realm paid dearly for that, my Queen.
Why did they wed if they did not love each other?
Your grand sire commanded it. A woodswitch had told him that
the Prince was that was promised would be born of their line.
A woodswitch. Danny was astonished.
Yeah, why wouldn't you be? I was astonished when I read
that a major part of this our summer hall coverage is
prophecy. And given that quote, it's
pretty clear that Jaharis was a believer in such things.
If not a big believer in such things.
He may have also been a believer in the rebirth of dragon.
Sounds a little optimistic or even crazy, but to be fair, the
prophecies were right. The Dragons did come back
eventually. Eventually now, we said Jaharis
probably wasn't interested in his father's reforms, but as an
intelligent man, he surely would have seen the value of Dragons
like many of his predecessors faced by war.
They would know that many of these wars would never have been
attempted had the Targaryens had dragon.
Thus, it should be asked, was Jaharis overly traumatized or
convinced by Summerhall to the point that the idea of hatching
Dragons was a lost cause to him, or was it his belief in prophecy
strong enough that he continued to believe?
Now, his wife's influence would surely matter, is the true merit
for love. But we know all too little about
Queen Shara. Daenerys's only grandmother.
Yeah, other than that, she survived Summer Hall, you know,
So we didn't even know her name until the world wise.
That's true. It's it's so weird thinking
about these incest families having one grandma, you have one
grandmother and 1:00 they have the exact.
Same. Exact same bloodline.
You know, there's no, it's so weird.
Anyway, it's quite possible the Jairus would have continued with
the hatching attempts, so maybe without so much wildfire, but
we'll never know. He died after a short reign of
only about 3 years. And you know who took over next
Part 3? Aries ascends.
Madness descends. In terms of Summerhall, a lot of
characters get talked about in the fandom, mostly Rhaegar and
of course Duncan Egg. But the character who may have
been the most impacted is perhaps the least talked about
in this regard, at least in this light.
Right? Because in general, he's been
discussed quite a bit. Actually, now we're talking
about the Mad King. Obviously we're going to contend
that Aries was deeply affected by Summerhall and then it may
have a lot to do with the man he became, particularly how much it
had to do with his madness. First off we're going to take a
high level look at PTSD and trauma.
I I never know where researching a topic is going to take us and
this is pretty special. Going in this direction, I
usually don't have to research outside of a swing license fire.
Without getting too complicated though, brain damage can occur
when someone's stress levels exceed the brain and or bodies
thresholds to handle such things.
This can cause extreme stress reactions long after the actual
event and well after the literal danger has passed.
The greater the amount the threshold is exceeded, the
greater the potential for lasting harm and more severe
damage. It's actually kind of
straightforward, and you think about it.
Put it other way, the bigger the trauma, the more likely there
will be lasting harm. Same goes for having a weak mind
in the 1st place. And by the end, Eris was like
this. Many of the accounts written of
Harrenhal speak of his hysterical laughter, long
silences, bouts of weeping and sudden rages.
Now let's put that in context. The following is a list of PTSD
symptoms taken directly from the Mayo Clinic's website.
Doesn't sound like a very healthy clinic.
Too much mayonnaise. That's how they heal everything
now. Irritability, angry outbursts or
aggressive behavior. There's the sudden rages, and
you needn't recount his actual violent aggressive.
And we have always being on guard for danger.
Well, we all know how paranoid he was.
Now we have overwhelming guilt or shame, and there's the bouts
of weeping we just described, so it all fits quite nicely.
Now on to other characters. Jenny of Old Stones may have
survived and possibly gone that herself.
We don't know much about her and probably won't until very late
in the Dunkin egg tails, but she's a decent enough example as
a parallel. Now a line from Denny's song
tells us that. High in the halls of the Kings
who are gone, Jenny would dance with her ghosts.
We should have had you sing that as.
The first line refers to old stones itself.
That's the halls of kings that are gone.
It's a ruined former seat of house mud, which is a first men
line of kings. That that part's easy to
interpret. I see 4 distinct ways to
interpret the second line, however not so easy.
Yeah, could be that the ghosts specifically refer to Prince
Duncan and the others who died at Summer Hall, perhaps children
that they may have had as you speculated in the first episode.
That's right. Or the ghost is a reference to
the ghost of high heart, pluralized and stylized because
hey, this is a song. And singers, you know, that's
what they do. The ghosts referred to here are
something from before summer halls, another possibility,
which may mean she died there after all.
And finally, the 4th possibility is the same, but instead of
dying there, she made it out was but was driven mad by these
nebulous past events combined with the tragedy.
What we mean there is that a prior history of mental illness
or earlier separate traumas can significantly increase
susceptibility to new traumas. So let's relate this to Aries
again. Yes, so to account for why
Aries's problems got worse as he got older, PTSD can have a late
onset. The realm did quite well during
this first decade plus of rule after all.
Aries went gradually mad, but it wasn't merely the passage of
time. Rather, it was a few key events
that really pushed in. Right there were there were
these milestones along his life that that just chipped away at
his sanity. Let's go through a few of those
things, but first from the JAMA in 2013, the researchers
concluded that people diagnosed with delayed PTSD tend to
experience some form of mild traumatic brain injury during
the events that trigger their post traumatic stress.
They also concluded that the experience of additional high
stress situations in the aftermath of a traumatic event
can increase the impact of post traumatic stress enough to push
a person over the line into diagnosable delayed PTSD.
So consider that as you consider how Aries suffered other traumas
too, notably his wife's numerous stillbirths and miscarriages.
Surely these tripped away his sanity as well.
But the big one that we've known about for a while.
Right captivity at Dusk and Dale had shattered whatever sanity
had remained to Aries, the Second Targaryen.
From that day forth, the King's madness reigned unchecked,
growing worse with every passing year.
That just sounds so funny, I'm sorry Aries.
The second Targaryen second one ever.
But Aries had shown sides of losing it, so to speak, and was
a terrible king, husband, father and well, person.
But of the cruelties and vile acts he committed, the worst
came in these later years. The same goes for his obsession
with fire. In the wake of Duskindale, the
king also began to display signs of an ever increasing obsession
with dragon fire, similar to that which had haunted several
of his forebears. His attitude was similar to his
grandfather. Lord Darkland would never have
dared defy him if he had been a dragon writer, Aries reasoned.
His attempts to bring forth Dragons from eggs found in the
depths of dragon stones, some so old that they had turned to
stone, yielded not, however. Of course, that didn't work
either. Shocking, but at least the red
key didn't burn to the ground. It's very interesting to see
that Aries still kept the dream of Dragons going.
Shows how stubborn the Targs were in the face of failure
there, or how much they believed in the prophecies, or a little
combination of both. We don't know anything of of
these attempts by Aries though. As an aside, that passage almost
certainly reveals where Illyrio got the eggs he gave to Danny.
You know, through Varis of course.
Frustrated, Aries turned to the wisdoms of the Ancient Guild of
Alchemists, who knew the secret of producing the volatile jade
green substance known as wildfire, said to be a close
cousin to Dragonflank. So Aries was either either so
far gone that it didn't matter, or he didn't blame them for what
happened at Summer Hall either way.
The pyromancers became a regular fixture at his court as the
King's fascination with fire grew.
So Duskindale triggered or enhanced his PTSD, and soon
after he turned to Wildfire, becoming obsessed with it and
eventually with using it on people.
That fits perfectly, George, you devious bastard.
It was right there all along. These things about Aries, it's
really cool. I mean, this is this goes to
show the value of rereading. There's just always more to
find. I just really just never ending
and and this has been in front of us the whole time.
Aries also like to have them make wildfire jars in the shape
of fruit, but I'm not really sure how to interpret that one.
Sounds pretty sexual, you. Should not be.
We are not the first to note that Aries or even Rhaegar
showed PTSD symptoms such as Rhaegar's depression, nor is
this limited to those two. Yeah, astute members of the
Phantom have pointed to such symptoms in a wide variety of
characters in A Song of Ice and Fire.
We take this to mean that it is intentional and something George
is specifically aiming to be humanly realistic about.
Some of these are obvious, like Thea.
I mean, in fact, he might be the most obvious, probably.
But Cersei, Arya, Sandor, Tyrion, even Aaron Damper is
troubled by a recurring dream. The sound came softly, the
scream of a rusted hinge. Hurry, he muttered, and woke,
fearful. There is no hinge here, no door,
no worry. Though he has only a few
chapters, he thinks of the screaming hinge five times and
Aries POV would be frightening to behold.
Such crazy much cruel. Now to be clear, PTSD doesn't
make people insane. It doesn't make people cruel
either. Aries had these proclivities to
begin with. It's at least to some degree as
well as a weak mind. On top of that, trauma didn't
create the worst of his personality traits.
It may not have created any of them, but it's certainly
contributed to his loss of empathy, his loss of
self-control, probably his grip on reality, something you never
had a strong sense of in the first place.
Yeah, I think of someone with addiction problems that relapses
after, say, the death of someone close.
It's a common enough anecdote that death didn't create the
addiction, for example, person, but it did crush their willpower
that they were relying on to avoid temptation and
backsliding. So it's like a double whammy.
He was born with issues and then had more inflicted on him during
his life, and then the effect is even greater because of his
youth at the time. I mean, we all know that the
younger we are, the more impressionable we tend to be.
So Aries was a father and a Prince.
Yeah, but only around 15. Yeah, so Summerhall is the key
to understanding why areas gradually went mad.
All the traumas he suffered later in life as an adult
reopened the mental wounds he suffered at Summerhall as a
young man. Much of this manifested in the
form of paranoia. He trusted almost no one,
excepting the pyromancers and the Kingsguard.
His trust for them stands in such stark contrast to his
general paranoia that I suspect there's more to it.
I mean, the guy wouldn't even let a Barber near him.
His hair and nails grew out of control, yet the sword to the
Kingsguard didn't bother him. Yeah, I mean, how does a
paranoid guy forget the danger to himself?
Like in the case of Jamie's addition to the Kingsguard, even
after realizing the danger after the fact, he still wound up
keeping Jamie by his side constantly, even during the
rebellion. From a storytelling point of
view, this worked out nicely since.
A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard.
Plus he tells us Aries liked to keep me close, I was my father's
son so he did not trust me. He wanted me where Varis could
watch me day and night. So I heard it all.
So Jamie gives us lots of great insight into Aries and so does
Barristan. And by the end of the episode,
Jamie will get some attention of his own, too.
So even after the Mad King got into his head that people were
poisoning his babies and or sleeping with his wife, causing
all of his stillbirths and miscarriages, he still trusted
the Kingsguard with young Viserys.
There was this quote. Kingsguard Knights were
commanded to stand over him night and day to see that no one
touched the boy without the King's leave.
Now you might be thinking Sarah Bariston was a major player in
Aries's trust, but this was prior to the defiance of Dusk
and Dale. Right.
My favorite way to explain why Aries's paranoia seems blind to
the Kingsguard is also related surprise to Summerhall.
Instead of heroism of Barristan the Bold, it may have been the
heroism of Sir Duncan the Tall and his general closeness to
Agon the Unlikely. Yeah, Eric's would have grown up
knowing about his grandfather's days as Egg, wandering the Seven
Kingdoms with Dunk. Sir Duncan saved Agon's life
many times and put down at least two different rebellions by
defeating somewhat important in single combat.
In general, Dunk was ultra loyal to his king and former Squire.
He also died at Summerhall, and the fragment from Archmaester
Gil Dane reveals that Sarah Duncan showed conspicuous
bravery in the face of the conflagration.
Surely Aries would have heard this, and he probably saw some
of it himself. Possibly he saw other Kingsguard
die apart from Dunk during the event as well.
This could easily be something that left a deep impression of
its own. Whatever the reasons though, he
seemed to trust the King's Guard more than his own family.
Even Aries eventually grew to mistrust Ragar.
Which brings us to this. There's an aspect of Summerhall
that is unique to him and his sister wife which makes the
whole thing well conflicted. The vast majority of us can't
comprehend the loss Aries and the other survivors must have
felt. That's hard enough to grasp, but
only he and his sister wife felt what must have been the ultimate
pinnacle of mixed feelings. Right, this is really heavy here
to to most everyone, Summer Hall was a tragedy, a disaster, or
whatever other negative adjectives you want to come up
with. There are a wide variety to
choose from of course, but through Aries and Rayella it was
also what is typically and understandably, a once in a
lifetime moment of joy for the vast majority of humanity for
all time the birth of their first born child, in this case a
son, which in patriarchal Westeros is greatly preferred,
especially for a royal family short on airs.
Simply put, Rhaegar's birth creates a strange, positive
association with what would otherwise be pure horror.
Is there any connection to this? Relations between Aries and his
queen had been strained during the last years of his reign.
They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during
the waking hours. But whenever Aries gave a man to
the flames, Queen Rael would have a visitor in the night.
So he sees someone die screaming from wildfire and it reminds him
of making babies or something. It's an interesting possibility.
By interesting you mean disturbing.
And it gets worse. It does get worse.
The day he burned his Mason dagger hand, Jamie and John
Derry had stood a guard outside her bedchamber whilst the King
took his pleasure. You're hurting me, they had
heard Raeela cry through the oaken door.
You're hurting me. In some queer way, that had been
worse than Lord Chelstead's screaming.
We are sworn to protect her as well, Jamie had finally been
driven to say. We are Derry aloud, but not from
him. Jamie had only seen Raeela once
after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone.
The Queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed inside the
royal wheelhouse that would take her down Egon's high hill to the
waiting ship, but he heard her maids whispering after she was
gone. They said the queen looked as if
some beast had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and
chewing on her breasts. A crown beast, Jamie knew.
Yeah. So as an aside, this is the last
time that Aries and Riella saw each other, and given Aries
regularly slept with her those days, this incident was likely
the night Daenerys was conceived.
Not so great. Not so great, soon Jamie would
be the only one guarding the King as Sir John Derry left with
Sir Barristan, Prince Louis and Martel and Prince Rhaegar for
the Battle of the Trident. And you know most of them didn't
come back. OK, real quick, a shout out for
Lady Guinavar's Queens Guard, commanded by Maester David once
and future Queen. He is our latest addition to our
Patreon sells for captains who has gone in a little slightly
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You guys, when you choose a Patreon title, you're welcome to
be very creative with it, do what you want and change
basically whatever we've said there.
Those are mostly just guidelines also.
So yeah, he so he. He certainly did.
Certainly. Did and that's Lady Guin of our
of, of radio esteros, of course. So there you go.
There's an ad for radio Esteros embedded in that that that ad
there ADD and within an ad within an ad no.
Also folks remember to shop at Amazon through history of
westeros.com. Right now pre ordering the night
of the seven kingdoms seems particularly appropriate.
We're talking. About a lot if you don't.
If you weren't aware, that's an illustrated edition with all
three of the Duncan Egg stories illustrated by Gary Gianni, and
some of the art has been released already.
It looks really good. Really.
Yeah. So highly recommend that.
You're going to want to get your hands on it, especially because
I know some people out there said it's kind of hard to find
some of the early Dunkin eggs these days, so little.
Hassle. You have to like get them all
separate. Yeah, a lot of times you buy
them use or second hand and a lot of those get snapped up and
some people sell them for ridiculous prices.
So this is I'm glad that they're fixing that problem for the
fandom. So that'll be out in October.
You got plenty of time. Exactly.
All right. You can also get someone
started. That's one of our favorite
things to do. My recommendation, you've got a
friend that you know who who's talking about reading the books.
They've maybe they've watched the show.
Go go on our site, go through Amazon and just send them the
book. Send them the first book to send
them Game of Thrones. Have it arrive at their at their
door. That's 5 or $6.
That's about it, right? Yeah.
Anyway. All right, let's move on.
Let's go to. Part 4 Dragons in the Shadow.
No, not a shy. I wish we had info on that.
These are figurative Dragons, as in the ones outside the
spotlight. Now, after all that airy stuff,
I actually do feel some pity for him.
Not much, especially after the rail a bit and quote we just
went through, but as a character he's at least a little grey now.
Which is, you know, the essence of A Song of Ice and Fire.
Characters are rarely black and white.
Even the vile characters like Aries and Joffrey and Ramsay
have some something in them that's just they have real
issues. Yeah, there's something that
made them the way they are. It's not just random.
Not just random evil. Titans, And those are like the
darkest characters I can think of.
Even Greg Orr has like these splitting migraines, you know,
just a regular thing. So the insane, cruel, tyrannical
king is just too much of A trope for George to overuse.
And I think, and as I think we've shown, Eris is indeed way
more complicated than he first appeared.
Yeah, his madness. It's like it has its own origin
story and it checks out as believable, at least from from
where we're sitting. I love it even though, I mean, I
wouldn't love it if it was real, but I I love how realistic it
is. Realistic.
So let's look at the other Targaryens impacted by
Summerhawk. We're saving Rhaegar for last,
so now we turn to two people who are very important in his life
and on their own. His mother, Rae Ella is 1st, and
hers was an incredibly tragic life.
It's easy to drive this point home by noting that she suffered
through everything Aries did, plus having to be married to
him. Yeah, right.
On top of it. But oh, there's more.
This particular fictional character really got the short
end of the proverbial stick from the all powerful George RR
Martin. Let's enumerate and or reiterate
some of these items, which some of which we've gone through
already 'cause we went through them with Aries and they backed
her the same way. Analyzing her requires a
different approach than what we did with Aries and what we'll do
with Rhaegar, because we just don't know as much about her.
We know these details, but we don't know as much about how
they hacked her 'cause she's hardly ever on screen.
She doesn't have many lines. So being married to Aries at the
time, it wasn't the worst thing for a Princess slash queen given
how common it was, and also because he wasn't such a bad guy
back then. A loveless political marriage is
is not a great thing, but it's certainly not unusual either.
But obviously, while Loveless might describe the early stages
of their marriage, the latter stages not so much.
The adjectives would become more negative and severe over time,
like Marius's madness. Yeah, there was the issue of
that sexual violence, of course, and there was the absurd
hypocrisy over the issue of the many stillbirths and
miscarriages. Check this out.
Relations between the king and queen grew even more strained
when Raela proved unable to give Aries any further children.
Miscarriages in 263 and 264 were followed by a stillborn daughter
born in 267. Prince Daron, born in 269,
survived for only half a year. Then came another still birth in
270, another miscarriage in 271. And Prince Agon, born two turns
premature in 272, dead in 273. Now that's a lot of death.
That is a lot of death. Even for a medieval setting
where you know a lot of babes die in the cradle, that is still
way above that. I could have stopped like
halfway through there and you would have been like, that's a
lot of death. Yeah, so that's already a reason
to, like, mess with someone's head and to cause, like,
permanent trauma damage. But this comes after greater
traumas have already happened. So sure.
But surely Rayella was just as saddened, if not more saddened
than he was. Yeah, we're told Aries was kind
and comforting with the first few, but eventually he began to
blame her and accused her of infidelity, basically locking
her in a queen vault. So we're going to.
Call it Queen Vault. Yeah, but of course Aries was
the cheater in that relationship.
It's really incredible, this hypocrisy.
Yeah. Are you sure you feel pity for
him? Challenge I win.
But yeah, I do too, a little bit.
Is it possible that the events of Summer Hall, elements of the
ritual itself, did some kind of damage to her?
It's possible. The picture is strange when you
look at it closely, which is kind of why exploring
out-of-the-box ideas is appropriate.
Here's what we mean. Royella got pregnant many times.
Harry slept around a lot. See where we're going with this?
Shouldn't he have some bastard's bum?
We know of none, nor of any plots to wipe them out if they
did exist. I mean, the only one we know of,
like, just like, maybe Tyrion is.
And that's, like, maybe that's one.
Maybe. Yeah.
You know, you think that's a maybe, and you think there'd be
at least a few for sure. Yeah, and you can't really think
that someone like Virus was going on wiping them out because
he didn't, he clearly didn't do, He did the opposite with
Robert's back if he like, took care of them and gave them gifts
and you. Know Yeah, well, I, I he didn't
care too much about the Baratheon threat.
Made that's true. So you're right, it's possible
he it's possible virus is the reason why there were no
Targaryen bastards from Aries. But still, not even not even a
peep. A hint.
So maybe Rayella wasn't harmed after all by Summerhall.
In other words, it's possible that the the wildfire, the magic
ritual mess with her womb somehow.
But I think actually the evidence might more point to
Aries being the one that was messed up, or both of them.
Yeah or yeah, they both were impacted because their child's
of incest and they just got the bad of the short.
End. Yeah.
So there's too much, there's too much confounding data to be
sure, but. I I think it points to me more
towards yeah, Aries having some sort of issue, Yeah.
But anyways, Next up, as with Aries, Raela witnessed
Summerhall and the death of many loved ones and family.
And also like him, she probably has really conflicted feelings
about the event. As in the mixed feelings of
tragedy and her first born son's birth coming together.
And then to chop it off, she had to witness her husband cease to
get along with her son and reject baby Rainey's and Elia
both. And Raela loved Rainey's, we
know that much. Yeah, We wonder if her mother
Shara was around. She almost certainly lived past
Jaharis. I mean, he died young, and we
know she lived through Summer Hall, so.
But how deep into Aries's range she lived is completely unknown
and without even small hints. So we, we, if there's a hint out
there for her being around, we haven't found it.
So we'd really just have no idea.
Ultimately, we know a lot that a lot of bad things happened to
Riella, but we don't hear anything about her breaking or
going mad like her brother, husband.
So I guess you just say she was tougher the tougher the two.
Like, that's pretty straightforward.
Yeah, Yeah. I think that is straightforward.
She was tougher, yeah, but that's that her personality is
still just not even just large in mystery, Mostly in mystery.
Yeah. Yeah, it's almost entirely.
One safe bet as far as the length of her life though, is
that it she didn't live as long as Maester Aim, and that's
pretty clear. He fits the description of a
dragon in the shadow quite well, with his black robes and oath to
abandon the family name. Yeah, but his relationship with
his family didn't vanish, and he clearly corresponded with
Rhaegar and Shirley, his brother, the king as well.
Aegon's kids knew him. They had all been born before he
went to the walk and eggs daughter Rael called him Uncle
Maester. Uncle.
'S real cute, but we have no idea of his reaction to
Summerhall other than the predictable.
Obviously he wasn't happy. About it, yeah, that's so funny
to think about. That was little.
That was Stannis's grandma. Grandma calling it, calling him
that. It's just.
And then Stannis shows up at the wall, like I remember your
mother calling me Uncle Maester. Yeah, your.
Before you think about grandmother.
Your grandmother. That's what He's just what?
Yeah. Your grandmother, right?
That's what. When John sent him off, he's
been like, look, this guy's not going to burn me.
I knew his grandmother. Yeah, I was like, OK, but I
don't think you know Stannis very well.
He doesn't care. Yeah.
Yeah, we have. Like I said, we have no idea of
his reaction to Summer Hall other than the predictable.
And to be clear, when Amon says to John that three times his
vows were tested, this apparently was not one of them.
After all, what would the test be?
No one was going to offer him the crown again and there was
nothing Amon could do about the tragedy after the fact.
Yeah, the first and second tests Amon relates to John have him as
a boy and then as a grown man. And he was old when Summerhall
burned, like in his early 60s. I mean Egg was 59 and Eamon was
older than Aegon I think by I forget how many years but a few
years. So but whatever he he clearly
still believed in some of the ancient prophecies like many of
his kin despite what happened at Summerhall.
So whatever the role Prophecy played in the event didn't turn
him off from the other ones either.
Just like it didn't turn off Aries and soon to turn off
Jaharis. Wow.
There was an egg in his cradle too, you know.
So he kind of grew up with this idea of Dragons and everything.
So Prophecy again, showing itself to be the proverbial
sword with no hilt. Yeah, here's the maester
himself, revealing how he and Rhaegar cut their hands, so to
speak, not once, but multiple times.
It was a Prince that was promised, not a Princess
Rhaegar. I thought.
The smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall the day of
his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died.
He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became
persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy,
for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night
Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star
had to be a comet. What fools we were who thought
ourselves so wise. As usual with prophecies, he was
part right, but you can't really afford to mess with these
things, right? You cannot afford to mess with
these things at all. So let's move on to Part 5.
Rhaegar, who thought himself so wise.
There was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense.
The old man hesitated again. Say it, she urged a sense.
Of doom. He was born in grief, my queen,
and that shadow hungover him all his days.
The series had spoken of Rhaegar's birth only once.
Perhaps the tale saddened him too much.
It was the shadow of Summerhall that haunted him, was it not?
Yes, and yet Summerhall was the place the Prince loved best.
Now it's not nearly as severe, but having a mixed view of
Summerhall is similar to how his father and mother felt.
Rhaegar probably knew that, and it may have added to his own
melancholy. Yeah, or at least to his
confusion or just his general, you know, feeling about the
whole situation. More severe however, than
perhaps any of his ancestors. Rhaegar was ruled by prophecy.
Yeah, except for Danis, that's true.
But she was right. Rhaegar had seriously had the
prophecy bug and the more we look at it the more he just went
with it without much evidence or data to back it up.
He just really jumped to some conclusions.
Now we can't possibly cover Rhaegar or The Prince That Was
Promised without stand alone episodes, but we can very much
take a look at how Summerhall played a role.
Yeah, Rhaegar was clearly a somewhat depressed guy, though
we hear words like melancholy here, which softens it.
I think, a little unfairly. He may have been seriously
depressed the way I see. It yeah, he seems passionate but
joyless. There's no I can't think of any
of the times we hear about Rhaegar where he was like
smiling or happy, nothing like that.
He was just a really just like, seriously gothy type dude.
But he seems he he yeah, he was determined but illogical.
Also, he needed some kind of mentor, I think.
But I guess Arthur Dayne and company either bought into his
beliefs or saw challenging them as disloyal.
Either way, he did believe he was trying to save the world and
he was very charismatic. So a lot of people went along
with him. And and this there's irony,
because in a lot of ways, Summer Hall is a microcosm for how
Rhaegar with plenty of help from dead with the realm on fire.
Will you make a song for him? The woman asked.
He has a song, the man replied. He is the Prince that was
promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.
So I know this is a vision seen by Danny, but come on man, it's
some serious assuming, right? The prophecy said the Prince
would be born of the line of Jahari Sincher.
Why this particular kid, Rhaegar?
Why are you so sure it's that one?
But this is a guy who thought he himself was the Prince that was
promised at first. So he's made a bit of a pattern
of these jumps of logic here. But there's also a larger
mystery here that I want to point out as well.
Of all the references to the Prince that was promised in the
books, this is the only time ice and Fire is connected to it.
Yeah, we're not really sure where Rhaegar got the idea, or
if his ancestors or say, Maester Eamon saw it that way.
So without thinking too much about the timeline, it's
tempting to see Rhaegar's choice of Liana as having something to
do with this whole aspect of the prophecy.
But remember that he named his own Egon, the Prince that was
promised, as shown in this vision after meeting Liana.
So that's right, the attorney of Harrenhal had already happened.
So to be clear, he meets her names were Queen of Love and
Beauty, then goes back to King's Landing for the birth of his son
Aegon, who he calls immediately. The Prince that was promised,
who somehow represents Ice and fire in the same regard.
I don't know how that is. So that calls into question
somewhat the idea that Rhaegar specifically needed Liana
because of who she was, IE by having a Stark slash Northern
blood as part of the prophecy. Because he already named this
Aegon as the Prince that was promised.
That's weird. I don't get it.
Doesn't check. It out, you know it's very
weird. Other than Daenerys division is
wrong. Yeah, yeah, that's another
question. Remember, that view comes from
the House of the Undine. House of Undine Wrong.
And he's talking about John and not Egon and that I don't know
that's weird. It's.
Rhaegar wasn't there for the birth of John either.
So yeah, you're right. And it's like weird.
It's yes, it would be a weird, it would be a weird mind trick
for them to play on her. It doesn't.
It's a mind trick on the reader. It's not.
An errors, the fact that it's a vision is the one thing that
keeps us from being really confused.
But that is definitely when you're thinking about the whole
Rhaegar Liana business, that's a big thing to keep in mind that I
think a a lot of time slips through the cracks, yeah.
So whatever the truth of his relationship with Liana, the PR
was, everyone agrees. Pretty terrible, Horrible,
nonexistent. And though it may be fair to say
that war wasn't a reasonable expectation, after them
despairing, maybe not. I think it was very.
I think it was unreasonable to not expect war.
He knew what kind of man his father was for sure, and he knew
at least a little about the hot headed Brandon Stark.
Yeah, he saw Brandon's reaction when he named Liana do something
queen of love and beauty at the at Harrenhal.
So Liana doesn't say anything. It's.
Anyway, but the best you can say is Rhaegar may have had good
intentions and was entirely willing to take on risk, while
his father was a coward who thought mostly of himself and
how his Barber was planning to kill him.
Also Rhaegar himself, he thought Rhaegar was planning to
overthrow him and he wasn't wrong.
Probably now Aries feared his own son.
Eventually some. We're not exactly sure when that
developed, but it certainly developed at some point.
Something we didn't. This is something we didn't know
a whole lot about before the World of Ice and Fire.
It was something that was kind of hinted at, but in the World
of Ice and Fire, it's outright stated what we did know was
expanded on majorly and has now become quite compelling.
Yeah, this is true for many of Rhaegar's relationships.
He won people over in a variety of ways, with charm, blood, his
noble bearing, you know, often his music.
Rhaegar's musical talent was channeled towards sad songs,
reflection of his personality and history.
He would go there from time to time with only his harp for
company. Even the Knights of the
Kingsguard did not attend him there.
He liked to sleep in the ruined hall beneath the moon and stars,
and whenever he came back he would bring a song.
When you heard him play his high harp with the silver strings,
and sing of twilight and tears and the death of kings, you
could not but feel that he was singing of himself and those he
loved. So you have to wonder if it's
possible that Rhaegar met the ghost of High Heart in the ruins
of Summer Hall. She might shun the place, to be
sure, but perhaps she would want to go and pay homage to the
dead, expecting to be alone, only to hear a High Heart
playing sad songs. The dwarf prophet does have a
strong love of sad music, as we've seen.
It's also possible that they might not have met at Summer
Hall somewhere else. Yeah, it's.
Truly possible too that he was in the Riverlands or something
like that. That's a good point, but Summer
Hall is much more of an evocative image.
Yeah, it's very true. Now Rhaegar's friends in the
Kingsguard were clearly altered, devoted to him, and perhaps to
the prophecy of the Prince that was promised as well.
At least Rhaegar's version of it, seeing as how they were at
the Tower of Joy guarding a child of Rhaegar and not seeking
out the saris who would have been Erius heir.
We've no hint that they told him that.
Hey, maybe you're going a bit too far with this Rhaegar.
Alternatively, did those wildfire fumes mess with your
fragile infant brain? Is that why you have no sense of
humor whatsoever, Mr. Rhaegar? Now it's it's actually kind of
amusing that one of the few guys with clout who would not have
been a fan of Rhaegar's prophecy beliefs is the Grand Maester.
But this is a relationship that is a bit unclear to us, Prince
Rhaegar and Paisel. That is.
We know Rhaegar corresponded with Maester Raymond who was
open minded about the supernatural, but Pisel does not
seem to be so open minded about about the.
Supernatural. He did seem to know a lot about
Aries though, and that gives us some of the detail we've used
today. Aries was actually good for
Picelle career. As odd as that sounds in
retrospect, it actually looks kind of good for him to have
survived the Mad King's reign. I mean Aries had so many
counselors and Lords put to death at whim.
I. Think it looks bad for him to
survive, but you know, I mean, seeing how he seeing how he
handled Joffrey, we can guess. So he was one of those, you
know, flatterer lickspittle types.
You know, he's like, Oh yes, a great fire King Aries.
Well, well lit. Yeah, well lit.
And so, you know, that's not likely the kind of man that Arie
that Rhaegar would call friend or ally.
It's true, Arie. He did call Joffrey the noblest
king, whoever lived. I would love whatever sometimes
Cell had to say about Aries. What would he call him?
Such a he his. His glory burns bright.
He's. The handsomest, I say, just like
those well groomed king. Now, yeah, so again, with the
whole thing about Ragar, even though he may have not thought
so highly of this whole prophecy thing, with that lickspittleish
personality, he wasn't likely to say bad things about the Prince
who he would have expected to become king at some point.
Yeah, Yeah. So.
He's not going to shoot himself in the foot, you know.
So Paisel is good as a witness in a few spots.
Yeah, and he also kind of maybe exaggerates his own involvement.
Here's a good quote. In a letter to the Citadel,
Paisel wrote that the divisions within the Red Keeper minded him
uncomfortably of the situation before the Dance of Dragons a
century before, when the enmity between Queen Allison and
Princess Rainier had split the realm in two to grieve his cost.
A similarly bloody conflict might await the Seven Kingdoms
once again, he warned, unless some accord could be reached
that would satisfy both Prince Rhaegar's supporters and the
kings. But of course, this civil war
never happened. Instead, a different one did,
one that Pricell didn't see coming.
I mean, not as far. It came on quickly and spread
unpredictably. Like wildfire.
Now, one day we will cover Robert's Rebellion.
But you know all the high points already.
What you might not know or what you may have forgotten or not
realized how important it was, comes next.
Now the World of Ice and Fire Again is available on audiobook.
This is a great time to get it because you can get it for free
through Audible. Audible trial on
historyofwesteros.com allows you 30 days with one free download
without having to pay. If you don't like it, you can
cancel it and keep the free book.
If you do like it, it's a lot more than audiobooks.
There's lots of different entertainment.
There's educational material, language learning.
It's really becoming a big thing.
In general, the the the rise of audio entertainment is a great
thing. Obviously if you're listening to
podcasts, you kind of know what we're talking about and you can
lay back with your arm on a dragon egg while listening.
To. Roy Doe Tris talk about the
history of Westeros and it's a great time.
I've done that myself. I don't know how many times I've
listened to the book already, but many times.
Part 6 The Mad King's Revenge. Summerhall the word was fraught
with doom. And that's Danny's perception of
it. Danny thinks that Summerhall is
fraught with doom. She didn't know her family saved
Viserys, and he likely knew little about Summerhall.
He was he. He was born, what, 1817 years
later after it? Still, the perception remains,
partly through barrister, but not entirely.
Yeah, you. I have to wonder if Danny's arc
will possibly take her there. Will she have a chapter in the
ruins of Summerhall? Will someone else?
Young Griff looks to take hold of the Stormlands and so it will
likely be in his possession soon.
Yeah, imagine the symbology of him taming one of Danny's
Dragons somehow gone rogue or whatever the circumstance is in
the ruins of Summerhall. That would fulfill the destiny
that Young Griff may have thought belonged to him.
That's pretty cool. But it's also probably kind of
crackpot, right? Yeah, I probably.
But it's cool. It's cool.
Especially if he's actually a black fire, right?
A black fire taming a dragon in a place that once tasted the
blood of Targaryens. Isn't that all the way to put?
It. Yeah, yeah, right.
As we've said, the sister location to Summer Hall is the
Water Gardens, so of course I'm very worried that the fate of
Summerhall foreshadows something tragic happening there, which is
really hard to think about. Yeah, destroyed by a dragon,
perhaps. That would be ironic.
Built for a Targaryen whose marriage to Dorm symbolized
peace. Destroyed by a Targaryen dragon.
Yeah. Now the last location we're
going to deal with is King's Landing and the last character,
Jamie. It's funny.
Aries was 15 when the impact of Summerhall hit and Jamie was
around 15 when the impact of Aries hit.
Which one was rougher enough? I got to guard this guy, Jamie
must have been thinking. No wonder Jamie was so flippant
about his vows. I mean, this guy, he was such a
terrible like this whole life. We brought up Jamie's standing
guard over Aries when he raped Rayola and how his violent lust
was fueled by having burned his own hand to the king earlier in
the day. But we didn't remind you of why
Aries burned this Lord Chelstead.
It was because Lord Chelstead objected to this.
He remembered how Rossart's eyes would shine when he unrolled his
maps to show where the substance must be placed.
Rossart was the head pyromancer and Aries hand replacing
Chelstad for a very short time. Before Jamie killed him, of
course. And now we have this quote.
The traders want my city, I heard him tell Rossart.
But I'll give them not. But ashes.
Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat.
The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them.
Aries meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all.
Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to
die. Like Aryan Bright Flame before
him, Aries thought the fire would transform him, that he
would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies
to ash. His Grace commanded his
alchemist to place caches of wildfire all over King's
Landing, beneath Baylor's Sept and the hovels of Flea Bottom,
under stables and storehouses at all 7 gates, even in the Cellars
of the Red Keep itself. Everything was done in the
utmost secrecy by a handful of master pyromancers.
They did not even trust their own acolytes to help.
The Queen's eyes have been closed for years and Rhaegar was
busily marshalling an army. Yeah, that's a ominous to say
the least. So we conclude the main portion
of this episode with an eerie reminder and the main reason we
called this part the Mad King's revenge.
While one Lannister brother says he haunted down the pyromancers
and forced them to reveal the caches of wildfire, we saw
through the other Lannister brother that his sibling didn't
get them all. For instance, there's the guy
who unwittingly channeled Aryan Bright Flame here.
Another cache of Lord Ross Arts was found more than 300 jars
under the Dragon Pit. Some horrors have been using the
ruins to entertain their patrons, and one of them fell
through a patch of rotted floor into a cellar.
When he felt the jars, he mistook them for wine.
He was so drunk he broke the seal and drank some.
It's crazy. But that's not the only case
like this, and much of the stock we made for Aries was lost.
Only last year, 200 jars were discovered in a storeroom
beneath the Great Sept of Baylor.
No one could recall how they came there, but I'm sure I do
not need to tell you that the High Septon was beside himself
with terror. No one could recall because
Jamie killed the only guy or guys who knew.
That was Helene talking, telling us all this.
And he wasn't a master back then, so he wasn't Privy to
those secrets. We were just told that only the
masters knew where the secret caches were.
Rossar seems to have been a little crazy himself.
Two peas in a psychopod. He and Aries.
He may have taken Rossov, may have taken extra steps to ensure
that the King's orders were carried out by being really
devious and secretive about these wildfire statues.
We've just given 2 examples of that.
Now, what have we told you many times in the history of History
of Westeros podcast meta? When George RR Martin drops the
same hint twice, this matters. There is still some of Aries's
wildfire hidden in King's Landing.
I am confident it's also more dangerous than it sounds.
I don't know how the dude in the in thinking wildfire was wine
green. I don't know how that worked.
But there's one thing they have in common, meaning wildfire and
wine. They get better with age.
According to Helene, they are. Ripper, now more than ever, if
you take my meaning, we have sealed them with wax and pumped
the lower vault full of water. But Even so, by rights they
ought to have been destroyed. But so many of our masters were
murdered during the sack of Kings Landing.
The few acolytes who remained were unequal to the task.
Thought. Let me tell you, I hear a very
silly voice for Helene, like a comically villainous voice in my
head. And when I was practicing, I did
it so well, but I knew that I couldn't keep a straight face if
I ever tried to do a voice in this podcast.
So. Roy Doe Teresa's voice for
Helene is pretty funny too. Yeah, I bet so.
All of his voices are funny. I I definitely I picture a Roy
Doe Teresa type voice. Like.
It's like a wise and old man saying his gross thing.
But anyway, it's pretty pretty, yeah, kind of startling to find
out that the the longer wildfire sits there, the more dangerous
it becomes. And it's already been sitting
there for 7 to 18 years and we know it's gain and potency
because of magic coming back into.
The world, Yeah. So what if Daenerys's Dragons
fight in or above the capital and a shot of dragon flame hits
the right or wrong spot? Yeah, wrong, depending on how
you look at it, right? Or just a regular old battle.
And unlike when Stannis tried, this time armies fight within
the city. Burn, burn.
I was making a show, 'cause he said that I'm like when?
Stannis thought. You'd burner but torch in the
wrong place might be all it takes for the Battle of the
Blackwater or Summerhall itself to just like some funny colored
campfire compared to King's Landing itself awash in
unquenchable emerald flame. Now by looking at Aries was
shaped, how Rhaegar responded and what befell them both, we
see how the past can haunt the future.
The shadow of Summerhall looms over Westeros still, and the
flames that destroyed it so long ago may yet ignite again.
And none of the characters are going to see it coming, but you
will. Now stay tuned, pass the credits
for a short after episode chat. We're going to talk a little bit
more about Bragging Egg right here, Pyromancers, Summer Hall
art, and toss out a few random facts.
But first though, thanks to all the we got a great response to
our request for help with video and editing and lighting advice.
Too many people to name here, but a lot of you gave really
fantastic advice that we're processing.
And as soon as we start making use of a lot of that, we're
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people that gave us such great help.
But we appreciate just the people that took the time to
contact us, to send us advice and to spend the time doing that
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Also thanks to people who helped with this episode.
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And Rainy Targaryen, Queen of Timelines, who helped us with
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I hope we get there soon. We'll start doing those as soon
as we get to that milestone. OK so a little post episode
chat. Yeah, we thought we'd talk a bit
about there was some art of the tragedy at Summer Hall in For
the World of Ice and Fire. If you haven't read The World of
Ice and Fire, we'll read it before you listen to this
episode. I'm going to say, but probably
most of you have, so if you've seen it, you can whip out your
book and go look at it. This is done by the incomparable
Mark Simonetti, who did George's favorite depiction of the Iron
Throne. Yeah, that giant, that giant one
and the 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar.
So he's generally a little reliable, but there have been
errors in the art in the world of ice and fire.
So there's there's a lot of details in this summer Hall
piece. For instance, in the bottom left
corner you can see Ryella giving birth there with a maester there
birthing her. Problem One of the problems with
the art I see it's the flame is the wrong color.
If wildfire was the reason that Summer Hall went wrong, the
flame should be green. George said he was real
particular about the art being accurate, but he may have not
noticed that, or that one may have snuck by or something very
different happened at Summer hall.
But if wildfire is clearly stated to be the a main thing
that went wrong, so I just, I think that's, I think it's just
a mistake. I think it's a mistake.
That's far more likely. When you look in the picture,
you can see figures in Summer Hall there, which is kind of
interesting too. You can see people bringing,
bringing people along the shore. Yeah, it's an interesting piece.
I don't think we should read too much into it, but definitely
worth a look. I guess that would be, you said
to shore. I guess there's a little lake
there or something. Yeah, it's like a like, I, I, I
don't know, I mean, I, I might just be, I just like, look like
an embankment, like a little hill.
I don't think there's water. I think I'm just like I was just
calling it that. OK, because I can remember that.
Yeah, yeah, it was just like she's like like an embankment
and and the maester is like in front of her.
And then like, you see some other people, like someone bring
someone, and you see some people in the in summer hall burning.
Yeah, it's definitely worth a shot.
There's like no artwork or summer hall or anything.
There's like no art. There's hardly any historical
artwork in general. I try.
I do the Fan Artist Fridays on our Facebook page where I try to
share historical artwork when possible, but there really,
really isn't any. Yeah, it's usually, we pretty
much are mostly showing current characters and current art and
current cast, which is fine. That stuff is fun too.
It's great fan art. Friday is is a lot of fun.
Yeah, it's Fan Artist Friday. Fan Artist Friday.
Excuse me? But anyways, if you have your
copy of The World of Ice and Fire, definitely recommend
checking out this one depiction Summer Hall.
No, it may not be entirely accurate, but it seems like the
color of the flange is the only thing that seems to be obviously
wrong with it. Yeah, well, there's also just
like the thing about, like, how many people were surviving.
Like you can't read too much like that maestro right there
birthing Rhaegar. And like we who know you know
who knows about that? Yeah, exactly.
That's but it's it's nobody. I mean, it's not like the artist
was there Summer Hall. OK, so let's talk a little bit
about the eggs. There were dragon eggs used, of
course, at Summer Hall. That was the main thing.
And this egg itself, Was there a dragon in here?
No crumbs. This one's immune to fire.
Yeah, it's just. Now some crumbs.
Of course, Egg would have his own egg in there, his own egg
that he was put into his cradle. That would be the most likely
egg to be one of the seven. I would think that maybe Amon's
egg would be 1 of theirs. I don't think Amon took his egg
with him to to to the wall. He didn't have it when he left
for Bravos. He would have brought that,
Yeah. Yeah, maybe Ray and Ella.
Aryan, Aryan had only died a year before.
Aryan the monstrous, the bright Aryan, Bright flame.
His egg would still be on hand. That's his other nickname, Da
Ella. Of course, like you said, little
Magor, Aryan's son, maybe his egg was around, but I would
maybe think that Aryan's egg just passed to him, but he was
born before Aryan died, so that's tricky.
And then there was Egg's older brother, Darren the drunkard,
and his son Darren the brave. Neither of them could have had
Eggs. We're not sure.
Yeah, we might have had, you know, Jerry's and Shara might
have had eggs, but their eggs might have been recycled egg.
Yeah, it's that's that's the thing.
Once we go back too far in the past, you're starting to get
into eggs that may have belonged to somebody and then given to
somebody else after they died. Like Regal, who was the the one
that danced naked through the red Keefs that he was kind of
born. Father Yeah, a war and a war.
Yeah, and so he probably had an egg too.
And his his he had children, even though he was mad, his
children probably had eggs too. And they were most they were all
dead before, even well before egg was king.
So their eggs could have been around.
But again, those could have eggs could have been belonging to
multiple people. One thing I think is pretty
likely, though, is that none of these eggs survived.
I I know that eggs can survive. These dragon eggs seem kind of
tough, but wildfire is awfully destructive.
And yeah, I don't know none of these eggs.
None of these eggs that we know of match the descriptions of any
of the any. Plus, you think that that would
be more likely to be mentioned. You know, once the once the
flames had died down, you know, they picked up the dragon eggs
dropping back. You know, it's somewhat notable.
They all just like ditch out Summer Hall, you know, get away.
The fires are still burning. The fires are still burning.
And then someone just comes up along Summer Hall and is like 7
dragon. Eggs.
Hell yeah score. And then they start hatching 7
Dragons. Oh my goodness.
Duncan the Small is another one who might have had an egg, you
know. And he was, I don't know why you
wonder if he gave up his claim to the throne, did he also have
to give up his egg? Another kind of sad possibility
that I don't think anyone wants to believe but but makes sense
is something we mentioned at the beginning of the this whole
Summer Hall saga. It's the possibility that the
sword Black Fire was destroyed by Summer Hall.
If not, if not Black Fire, perhaps Dark Sister, perhaps
both. Which would suck because the
swords are cool. I want them to be around, but
there's just no hint for where they could be.
And I'm not one of those people that believes that Blood Raven
was allowed to take Dark Sister with him to the wall.
So yeah. So I just don't.
I just don't know about that. I mean, I'm not saying it's
impossible he took it to the wall.
I've just. If I had to guess, I would say
no, he was not. I mean, the dude was sent there
as a traitor. Why would they allow him to keep
this ancestral sword that it belonged to Visenya and all
these other famous people? Like it's a really valuable
sword. So that's hopefully not the
case. But we'll be talking more about
Dark Sister and Black Fire. They're going to get their own
episodes down the line. They're already the part written
already. Now there's another.
We're going to get a little crackpot for a minute here.
Just for fun. A theory that's been tossed
around a bit is the exploding egg theory that would be the
reason given for what happened in the IT could be a reason for
what happened at the Doom, the dragon egg at the Doom, as well
as Heart Home and Summerhall. So I don't know what would cause
an egg, dragon egg explode. And there's not like strong
evidence for it. It's just a something, an idea
that some people out there had. It was the theories introduced
to me by our own Lucifer means Lightbringer, who we mentioned
earlier as a supporter of the show and a great a song of eyes
and fire thinker. I really like his his some of
his real ancient like large scale history analysis.
So like I said, his blog, his link to his blog on our
supporters page. Check that out.
But that's basically the idea that that's something that This
is why the faceless man wanted the egg from Euron, that Euron
may have paid them to assassinate Balon Greyjoy with
that they have somewhat desire for this egg, some use for it.
And that would be, you know, they they've had an egg to blow
up, you know, hard home and the doom.
And now they want to do that again.
I don't know where what they would use it on that would be
building on something that's already a bit crackpot.
But it's a cool idea. I'm not a big tinfoil guy, but I
do enjoy some tinfoil. And I when a theory has, you
know, is pretty well developed, you know, I think it's fun to
talk about a couple other things just for fun.
There's a few things that we ran across while researching this
episode that didn't really fit in any narratives that we kind
of decided to go with for this episode.
What about Jaharius living a little longer?
I'm not a big on what ifs either.
It's just it's just so complicated.
But I like simple what ifs are OK.
I just don't like what ifs after other what ifs.
That's just going too far. It becomes fan fiction
basically. But simple what ifs, I think are
kind of fun because you're just not stepping too far away from
the source material. So what if?
Who would Jaharis have married Rhaegar to if Jaharis hadn't
died so young? See, that isn't a what if,
that's a who? That's a what?
Who? Yeah.
Who, what, where, but. I think probably would have had
another kid, they would have had a daughter, they would have had
some sort of child. That's possible, yeah.
Maybe, you know, maybe it would have been easily possible for
Jaharis and Shara. Everyone wiped out you.
You think they try to have someone else?
That's a good point. That's a very good point.
And so he would have married his aunt.
Stress. Weird.
But you know, it's even possible.
What's even? It's kind of funky to think
about. Harris and Shara were not too
old. They could have had more kids
themselves. I'm.
Just my mean. That's.
Shara would. Have a child.
They would have tried to have a kid because everyone was wiped
out, so they maybe would have tried.
To have some, Yeah, I misunderstood.
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, because Rhaegar's a baby,
and if they had another baby, their age would be pretty close.
Obviously Aries and Raella were trying.
So like if they if they lived, then they would be like, OK,
well, they're not succeeding. Let's have a child again.
It'd be kind of a reversal sort of of what happened with Prince
Damon and Rainiera. This is the first time an uncle
married a dog. And this would be, of course,
would be reversed, sort of. This child wouldn't be
Rhaegar's. Aunt.
Well, it would be the same for. Yeah, well, it would be.
It would be the same for Daenerys and Rhaegar.
Oh, yeah, I'll put uncle. And that's true.
Maybe not for Daenerys and Rhaegar.
Daenerys and Aegon. You're right.
Oh yeah. But yeah, that's awfully funny.
It's random. All right.
You know, if Sheriff Rhaegar marries Sharon, she's been way
older. Yeah, that'd be too.
Well, she wouldn't be so. Just looking at other.
Marrying her, that's. Wait, would it be marrying his
own grandmother? Yeah, that would be weird.
Weird. But if the timeline worked out
differently, that kind of thing would be possible.
It'd be possible for the grandmother to not be that much
older. That's what I was thinking of
because I knew that they were real young.
They both said the parents were really young.
So I was like, is it, was it technically possible for her to
have kids? No, I'm not with.
Fun with incest, yeah. But.
When is incest ever fun? Well, the Targaryens make it
fun. But yeah, there's not really any
family ties that Jahari's had that we could draw from in terms
of who we would marry Rhaegar to other than a Targaryen, if he
was so into an intermarriage. Yeah, that's true.
He was in here. You're right.
He was an intermarriage with his father that was kind of breaking
the tradition he and his his sister kind of brought.
That back Aries and Rail and Mary and he thought it was the
thing to do. He brought it back into vogue, I
guess. But bringing.
Incest back. So yeah, I I guess it would have
been a priority of his to get some sort of female in the
family for Rhaegar, but I don't know what his alternative would
have been. Me neither.
It's it's it's big. That's just the hence the
problems with what if question. Do you ever know what they would
have done or what decisions they would have made?
Or maybe they could have brought out one of the maybe they could
have been a Baratheon or something.
I don't know. Yeah.
Anyway, yeah, I. Mean maybe they would have let
let Tywin marry Sorcey to him. Yeah, Harris might have been OK
with that. Yeah.
Well, he would have been like, that makes perfect sense.
And she's blonde, so it'll at least be decent in terms of, you
know, Yeah, it'll. Keep the Targaryen good looks
around. Yeah, yeah.
That's the what if I I like is yeah.
Rhaegar had married Cersei. It's funny.
To think about cause Cersei Arias is, you know crazy and and
random and Rhaegar is who he is. But Cersei to me, you know,
there was there used to be rumors and theories that Cersei
was a potential child of Aries's too, but the you know, the song
about the world of the license fire pretty much crushed that
theory. But, and it actually in a way I
like to think about Cersei as Cersei isn't dragon fire.
She's wow. She.
You know, she's that kind of crazy, just whatever she
touches, she destroys and you never can tell where it's going
to go next. Whereas, you know, Rhaegar was
more focused but illogical as we went over before.
One other random fun fact that we'll throw out who remembers
Squire Dollbridge? I know that name is familiar to
you. If you don't remember exactly
who he is, he's the guy that was in Corn Halfan's party when Jon
Snow went beyond the Wall for the first time.
He's the one that stayed behind to guard the Gorge to sacrifice
himself, picking off wildlings as they went through to delay
them so that Corin and John and Eben and Stonesnake could get
away. Well, remember who Squire
Dollridge was a Squire for in his youth.
King Jahari's the second old guy apparently, and Jahari, as we
know, wasn't much of A fighter. So I don't know, maybe he had an
easy job. But you wonder why he ended up
on the wall. Did he do something wrong?
Did he did he fight in the war of 9 Penny Kings?
I mean, he probably would have stayed behind with his king if
he was Squire to him or but he certainly never got beyond
Squire. Or of course, the nickname
Squire is his nickname. That's not, you know, he he
doesn't seem like he was ever knighted.
But it's interesting. I like to think about that.
And such are these small dot connectings that we can always
do with the Song of Ice and Fire.
That concludes today's episode. If you are a sports fan and you
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Valerie Margolis, see you next time.