Is Dunk Actually a Knight? the ‘Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Finale, Defined

Spoilers forward for “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” season one, episode six, “The Morrow,” and the e book “The World of Ice & Hearth.”

HBO’s “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” caught the touchdown on Sunday after a extremely praised first season.

The prequel present, which was meticulously tailored from George R. R. Martin’s “Tales of Dunk and Egg” sequence, managed to toe the road between faithfully bringing Martin’s characters to the display and including just a few new twists.

That was very true of the season one finale, “The Morrow,” which options a number of key scenes that do not exist in Martin’s unique novella “The Hedge Knight” — two of which have main implications for the present’s plucky duo and their many adventures to return.

Dunk’s flashback scene implies that he is mendacity about his knighthood

“The Morrow” features a flashback to Dunk’s current previous, when he was a squire for Ser Arlan of Pennytree.

As Arlan is propped towards a tree, pale and babbling and apparently dying, Dunk asks, “Why did you by no means knight me? Did you suppose I would go away you? I would not have. Or was it one thing else?” He would not get a solution.

The scene is filmed in the identical place because the season opener — on the hillside the place Dunk buries Arlan’s physique.

E book readers have lengthy suspected that Dunk is mendacity about his knighthood. He tells folks that Arlan knighted him simply earlier than he died, with “solely a robin, up in a thorn tree” to bear witness. When Dunk tries to enter the jousting match at Ashford Meadow, he is instructed to discover a lord or one other knight to vouch for him, however nobody can confirm his declare. Hardly anybody even remembers that Arlan existed.

Privately, Dunk struggles along with his id and the way he presents himself to the world. In “The Hedge Knight,” after it is revealed that Egg is a Targaryen prince in disguise, Dunk is shocked and embarrassed for having been deceived, however he additionally feels a twinge of compassion and solidarity: “He knew what it was wish to need one thing so badly that you’d inform a monstrous lie simply to get close to it.”

“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” showrunner Ira Parker instructed Enterprise Insider that he needed the scene to be up for interpretation.

“A number of the exposition round whether or not or not Dunk was knighted is inner ideas in his head. And we get fairly, fairly near him popping out and simply saying it. It is identical to, what else might he be considering of? What else might he imply by this?” Parker defined. “However it’s not stated in black and white.”

All through season one, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” drops refined hints that Dunk was solely ever a squire — that he is mendacity to provide himself a combating probability at a greater future. When he meets Egg within the premiere, the boy tells him plainly, “You do not look to be a knight.” In episode 4, Dunk hesitates when Raymun Fossoway asks to be knighted so he can struggle in Dunk’s Trial of Seven.

“Go on, Ser Duncan,” Lyonel Baratheon urges. “Any knight could make a knight.”

Nonetheless, Dunk would not draw his sword to meet the request. Is that as a result of he would not need his buddy to die in a harmful trial by fight? Or as a result of he would not know the phrases to recite if he by no means heard them himself? (“Within the identify of the warrior, I cost you to be courageous. Within the identify of the daddy, I cost you to be simply,” and many others.) It is also potential that Dunk would not need to danger Raymun’s honor with a knighting ceremony by a pretend knight.

Throughout his loaded pause, Lyonel provides Dunk a looking look, however these questions stay unasked.

Parker stated he made positive to protect the anomaly surrounding Dunk’s knighthood, which is “100% the best way George would really like it.”

Within the finale’s flashback scene, simply when it looks like Arlan is gone ceaselessly, he startles awake. We by no means really watch the outdated man die, so it is nonetheless potential that he knighted Dunk offscreen.

“It’s simply as vast open because it ever was,” Parker stated. “In order that was essential to keep up, but additionally — it is simply enjoyable. And I do know followers of the e book are going to be fascinated about that query, so we’re simply making an attempt to get pleasure from ourselves as a lot as potential with it. And it is just a little little bit of a tease.”

The irony, after all, is that Dunk is a more true knight than most, even when he by no means took the sacred vows. He is courageous and simply, and he dangers his personal life to guard the harmless — fairly not like the dishonesty and bloodthirst of his Trial of Seven opponents. These characters ask us to contemplate what actual honor appears to be like like in a spot like Westeros, and to query the substance of titles like “ser,” “lord,” and even “prince.”

In flip, Egg lies about getting his father’s blessing to journey with Dunk

After the Trial of Seven is over, Egg’s father, Maekar, asks Dunk to pledge himself to Home Targaryen and return with their household to Summerhall. He says that Egg has grown keen on Dunk and desires to function his squire.

Dunk gives as a substitute to convey Egg on his travels. He believes that rising up amongst smallfolk relatively than servants will assist Egg be taught compassion and humility.

Naturally, Maekar says no. He is not about to let his youngest son, the newest in a protracted line of royal Aegons, wander round Westeros with solely a hedge knight to guard him. “Princes will not be made for sleeping in ditches and consuming arduous salt beef,” he tells Dunk within the e book.

Dunk counters that Egg’s older brothers, who’re often called Daeron the Drunken and Aerion the Monstrous, by no means slept beneath the celebrities or ate less-than-perfect meals. Maekar leaves with out saying one other phrase.

Then, as Dunk is readying his horses to go away Ashford, Egg immediately reappears.

“My lord father says I’m to serve you,” Egg says, they usually experience off collectively, heading south towards Dorne.

Why and when does Maekar have a change of coronary heart? Within the e book, it stays a thriller, however the present gives a plainer clarification: He did not.

The ultimate scene of the episode exhibits Maekar driving away from Ashford with the remainder of the Targaryens. When he realizes Egg is nowhere to be seen, he begins panicking and shouting for his son.

Parker stated he created the scene as a result of it is sensible for the character of Egg. “[The story] began by him sneaking off and stepping into bother. And naturally, he simply goes and he does the identical factor, as a result of all of us make the identical errors over and time and again, after which we die.”

As for Maekar, the added scene displays his stubbornness as a father and his satisfaction as a Targaryen.

“He is only a curmudgeon, and possibly a shitty father, however I really do suppose he actually does love his kids. I do suppose he cares about them, though he is not capable of increase them effectively, he nonetheless needs to,” Parker stated of Maekar. “The concept of letting Egg go off with another person simply felt like an excessive amount of for me. It felt like he might fairly say no on this second, though he is aware of it will be higher for Egg.”

Though the present’s model of occasions would not immediately contradict the e book, it does add a troubling wrinkle to Egg’s household lore. Maekar ultimately turns into king of Westeros, and he might not take kindly to Dunk’s absconding along with his inheritor. He might even misread the occasion as a treasonous kidnapping.

“We’ll by no means be in Maekar’s POV, however this can rear its head in some unspecified time in the future,” Parker hinted for future seasons. “Some ways have been mentioned about the best way to take care of this. Hopefully, folks like the best way we have chosen.”

The second season of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” tailored from Martin’s “The Sworn Sword,” is slated for a 2027 launch.