What happened to Rhaegar in summer hall that made him so sad??
Since I answered my earlier ask about Jenny’s Song, I must admit I cannot get the prince off of my mind! Let me try to scrape my incoherent thoughts together.
Rhaegar Targaryen was born at Summerhall during the Tragedy at Summerhall.
Because of this association with it since birth, he developed something of a morbid fascination with the ruins. As Ser Barristan describes:
“There was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense of doom. He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days.
And yet Summerhall was the place the prince loved best. 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 twilights and tears and the death of kings, you could not but feel that he was singing of himself and those he loved.”
Among the casualties lost in the tragedy were King Aegon V and his heir Prince Duncan (songs about the death of kings). Prince Duncan’s love was Jenny of Oldstones (Jenny’s Song).
Jenny, a wild girl with the flowers in her hair. Sound familiar?
To Barristan Selmy, these songs sounded as though he were singing about his own, personal losses. Songs so beautiful and sad they reduced people to tears:
The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle, but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head.
So, let’s imagine for a moment what Rhaegar must’ve been doing at Summerhall alone with his harp.
“High in the halls of the kings who are goneJenny would dance with her ghostsThe ones she had lostAnd the ones she had foundAnd the ones who had loved her the most
The ones who’d been gone for so very longShe couldn’t remember their namesThey spun her around on the damp old stonesSpun away all her sorrow and painAnd she never wanted to leaveNever wanted to leave”
It sounds as if Jenny, in this instance, is Rhaegar, himself… Going to Summerhall time and again to dance with his ghosts - mourning the loss of loved ones he hadn’t yet lost - and one he had yet to meet (Lyanna).
In the books, we learn about Jenny’s song in Arya’s chapter. A curious old dwarf woman, The Ghost of High Heart, gives prophecies in exchange for a song:
“Oh, aye. My Jenny’s song. Is there another?”
And so he sang, and the dwarf woman closed her eyes and rocked slowly back and forth, murmuring the words and crying.
Did you catch that? Her Jenny.
A very old woman whose appearance is awful similar to that of the children of the forest - a three-foot tall woman with red eyes who seems to possess some measure of greensight… A woman who tells us that she “gorged on grief at Summerhall”.
Jenny was friends with a woods witch whom she considered one of the children of the forest. The dwarf woman, whom Jenny brought to court, prophesied that the prince that was promised would be born from the line of Prince Aerys and Princess Rhaella Targaryen.
It is no coincidence that the Ghost of High Heart shares such a resemblance with the same woods witch that came to court with Jenny.
It is no coincidence that Prince Rhaegar was obsessed with the prophecy of the Prince that was Promised… who he believed to be his own son.
This might even be why Rhaegar has two sons bearing the same name.
Perhaps he received a prophecy that the prince that was promised would be named Aegon. And so, Rhaegar named his first son Aegon, only to realize upon meeting Lyanna what the song of ice and fire truly meant.
It is my belief that the Ghost of High Heart was someone that Rhaegar either met at Summerhall (perhaps she was there to dance with her own ghosts?), or perhaps he sought her out on his own. Either way, he sang Jenny’s song in exchange for more information on this prophecy.
“They danced through the day and into the nightThrough the snow that swept through the hallFrom winter to summer and winter againTil the walls did crumble and fall”
These lyrics seem to suggest that Rhaegar was aware of winter coming, of the Wall falling. He knew what was coming.
And it has been my belief for years now, that Rhaegar is a martyr. That not only did he know his fate, but that he had to die. Not only him, but his entire family, his children, his wives… almost everyone he knew and loved had to perish.
Imagine that. Imagine what that must feel like. The fate of the world vs. the lives of you and all of your loved ones - save for a son you’d never get to meet.
“There was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense of doom. He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days.”
Despite many who would claim that Rhaegar loved prophecy above all, and that Lyanna meant nothing to him, we have canonical quotes from both book and show that prove Rhaegar loved Lyanna:
“Prince Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna, and thousands died for it.”
“Rhaegar didn’t kidnap my aunt, or rape her. He loved her. And she loved him.”
Rhaegar had just fallen in love, dying with Lyanna’s name on his lips. He probably wasn't ready to go.
“And she never wanted to leaveNever wanted to leave”
“I’ve always agreed with William Faulkner—he said that the human heart in conflict with itself is the only thing worth writing about. I’ve always taken that as my guiding principle, and the rest is just set dressing.”—George RR Martin
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