Full book and show spoilers ahead for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Game of Thrones, and House of the Dragon.
The first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was largely fantasy-free and unburdened by lore, allowing the show to serve as an entry point for viewers who might be new to Westeros. But just because the spin-off series lacks dragons and largely stands alone from the overall saga of A Song of Ice and Fire, that doesn’t mean it’s entirely disconnected from it. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ protagonists Dunk and Egg each play their roles in making sure one of the most consequential characters in all of Game of Thrones lore even exists.
Egg is just a kid squire in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, but he eventually grows up to be King Aegon V Targaryen, with Dunk serving as his Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. (Egg is dubbed Aegon the Unlikely given how far down the line of succession he was.) Dunk and Egg’s fates are intertwined, and the fortune teller they encountered in Episode 3 predicted what’s in store for them decades later (in stories as yet to be written by George R.R. Martin).
"You shall be king, and die in a hot fire, and worms shall feed upon your ashes, and all who know you shall rejoice in your passing,” the fortune teller told Egg (who was not yet revealed to be a Targaryen at that point in the show).
Aegon V’s apparent death at Summerhall has ties to one of the enduring mysteries of Game of Thrones: the identity of The Prince That Was Promised who will save the world from the darkness posed by the White Walkers.
So let’s break down what happened at Summerhall, what it meant for the Targaryens, and how Aegon V’s dragon obsession factors into the flagship Game of Thrones TV series.
Dunk and Egg’s Fiery Future: The Tragedy at Summerhall Explained
Summerhall is a Targaryen palace located near the borders of The Reach, Stormlands and Dorne. Egg’s time as Dunk’s squire instills in him a compassion for the smallfolk and an understanding of their needs. As King Aegon V, he sought to improve the lives of the lowborn, and his reforms made him plenty of enemies among the nobility. During his 26-year reign – which is chronicled by George R.R. Martin in his book The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones – Aegon V dealt with several uprisings and political dangers posed by the aristocrats who loathed him for trying to grant freedoms and protections to the smallfolk.
Aegon realized he needed an insurance policy against such threats as well as a way to force the lords to abide by his rulings. He became obsessed with restoring the Targaryen line of dragons (who die off by the conclusion of House of the Dragon). Aegon spent years seeking ancient texts and lost lore about Valyrian dragon breeding, even commissioning expeditions to the port city of Asshai on the continent of Essos, a distant place said to be home of arcane secrets and where magic users can practice openly.
Aegon’s goal of hatching dragon eggs – a ritual that requires fire and a blood sacrifice – results in the tragedy at Summerhall. In 259 AC, Aegon V invited his extended family and allies to Summerhall in what was meant to be a celebration of the birth of his first great-grandchild. But that wasn’t all Aegon had planned while everyone was visiting his summer home.
While many details are lost to history – an ink blot on a maester’s letter chronicling his eyewitness account of the tragedy has kept the event shrouded in mystery – it’s believed that Aegon employed wildfire and sorcery to hatch dragon eggs and that the resulting blaze went horribly awry, killing nearly everyone present and destroying Summerhall.
Among those killed are Egg, Egg’s son Prince Duncan Targaryen, and many more. Dunk is believed to have perished but it's uncertain. (While the Targaryens lost a slew of would-be successors in the lead up to Egg becoming Aegon V, the deaths of so many members of the ruling dynasty at Summerhall only added to why there are so few Targaryens left by the beginning of Game of Thrones.)
While the tragedy at Summerhall is remembered for so much death, it also marked the birth of a pivotal figure in Game of Thrones lore: Prince Rhaegar Targaryen.
Are You Excited for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 2?
YesNoIndifferentThe Prince That Was Promised
Rhaegar Targaryen, the son of “The Mad King” Aerys II and his sister-wife Rhaella, was born at Summerhall as it was consumed by flames. It is said that the last heroic deed performed by Dunk – Ser Duncan the Tall, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard – was saving the pregnant Rhaella. If Dunk had failed to rescue Rhaella (and Rhaegar) then neither Daenerys Targaryen nor Jon Snow would have been born. By saving Rhaella, Dunk ensured that Jon Snow is alive to rally humanity against the White Walkers.
The Targaryens have long believed in dreams and prophecies and many of them, including Egg’s brother Daeron the Drunken, have the ability to dream of the future. Egg’s son Jaehaerys II was told by a woods witch that The Prince That Was Promised would be born of Aerys and Rhaella’s line, so he married his two kids to each other to ensure it would happen.
Their firstborn son, Rhaegar, also became obsessed with the prophecy of The Prince That Was Promised and lived his life as if he was the chosen one. He met at least one of the prophecy’s criteria, which is that the savior would be born amidst salt and smoke. Egg’s brother Maester Aemon (the old man at the Wall with Jon Snow) thought Rhaegar being born during the fiery destruction of Summerhall checked those particular boxes, but Rhaegar was not, in fact, the prophesied one. He would die years before the White Walkers showed up, perishing in battle during Robert’s Rebellion.
So perhaps Rhaegar’s son with Lyanna Stark – born Aegon Targaryen but raised by Ned Stark as Jon Snow – is the chosen one instead. However, the Game of Thrones TV series never quite settled the whole Prince That Was Promised prophecy. No character met all the criteria, not even Jon. (Arya Stark, you will remember, is the one who ultimately slew the Night King, not Jon.) Perhaps then the chosen one was a different great-grandchild of Egg’s, namely Rhaegar’s sister and Jon Snow’s aunt, Daenerys Targaryen.
The House of the Dragon: Season 2 finale resurrected the specter of The Prince That Was Promised when Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) had a weirwood vision of the future that included Daenerys and her three freshly hatched dragon children. Showrunner Ryan Condal said at the time that the show’s producers “are not trying to make any kind of specific interpretation of a prophecy that has yet to be revealed by its author.”
“Remember that Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, House of the Dragon in many ways, or Fire & Blood in many ways, are warnings about the perils of power and people in power, and particularly I think in this world, absolute power,” Condal said. “So I will say, we're very interested in how those things play out in this world and how once somebody is given, as we've seen Rhaenyra [Emma D’Arcy’s queen] be given this football to run with that – ‘my father chose me, I was the Prince Who Was Promised, it must be me, this dragon rider was delivered to me’ – and how that's going to see itself manifested over the course of this war."
Condal later added, “We know Rhaenyra is already running with this idea of the Prince Who Was Promised; if Daemon also believes that is Rhaenyra, as we've seen him say to her in High Valyrian in Episode 8, there's a very interesting thing that can be done with his interpretation of that. … We are not trying to make any kind of specific interpretation of a prophecy that has yet to be revealed by its author. And that is George's world and George's space to tell that story. I think we're more interested in playing with the character drama that lives in and around that imagery."
Fans will have to see how House of the Dragon contends with the prophecy when Season 3 premieres this June.
Did Egg Try to Sacrifice Rhaegar?
Since hatching dragon eggs requires both fire and a blood sacrifice, there are fan theories – such as those posted by YouTube channels Joe Magician and Alt Shift X – that the dragon-obsessed Aegon V might have been trying to sacrifice either himself or his newborn great-grandson Rhaegar in the fire in the hopes of hatching the dragon eggs.
That would seem especially cruel given the kind nature of Egg’s character, but the Targaryens have shown that they’ll do the damndest things where prophecies are concerned. As Egg’s brother Maester Aemon once observed, “My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one.”
For Aegon V, dragons are needed to maintain the Targaryens’ hold on the Iron Throne and to protect his family and the smallfolk from his enemies. As Alt Shift X suggested, if Aegon did try to sacrifice Rhaegar, that would put him into direct conflict with Dunk, who is duty-bound as a knight to protect the innocent.
While Daeron’s vision of Dunk standing over a dead dragon seems most likely to refer to Prince Baelor Targaryen’s death in Episode 5, what if it’s actually a vision of Dunk’s final moments with Egg in the distant future?
It would obviously be a huge pisser to see these two beloved characters come to such a bitter end, but it would also be very on brand for Game of Thrones. Of course, it could also be that things turn out very differently for Dunk and Egg than the recorded history of Westeros would have fans believe.
Actor Dexter Sol Ansell recently revealed during a talk show appearance that George R.R. Martin clued him in on the characters’ fates: “We know Dunk survives [Summerhall] but we don't know if Egg survives yet.” (His co-star Peter Claffey, who plays Dunk, interjected that “we don't know if that's exactly what happens.”)
Egg’s adventures with Dunk build his moral character as a future king, but his actual legacy as Aegon V seems like a mixed bag. Sure, he was good to the smallfolk, but his obsession with restoring dragons proved to not only be his undoing, but also caused the death of many innocents and left deep psychological scars on his family for generations to come.
AI music generator Suno hits 2M paid subscribers and $300M in annual recurring revenue