[Editor’s note: Episode four of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms arrived today on HBO Max.]
Exactly how long Ser Dunk (Peter Claffey) sits in that cell isn’t clear. It’s long enough for the torchlight dancing off the damp stones of House Ashford’s dungeons to play tricks with ser’s eyes. They look to us like the stars above Westeros, just as they seem to Dunk. It’s a moment of strange, cosmic beauty rarely found in the televised A Song of Ice And Fire and a brief, calming reprieve for our hero from the stresses of the night and morning to come. There’s no shooting star in this sky (though one does appear for poor Dunk later on, courtesy of Youssef Kerkour’s Steely Pate), but the fleeting serenity it provides is gift enough. A small mercy.
In an episode rife with symbolism and meaning, that vivid night sky represents Ser Dunk’s inner clarity and why he meets the chaos of Westeros with such an open heart. As A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms has established astonishingly well with its limited screen time, Ser Duncan The Tall may not be the sharpest knight at Ashford Meadow, but he is by leagues the kindest. It’s how he was brought up. Ser Arlan (Danny Webb) led him with a firm but fair hand, setting a humble example of what a knight is—or ought to be.
That’s what makes the final moments in this week’s episode so heartbreaking, at least before Prince Baelor Targaryen (Bertie Carvel) rides unheralded to save Dunk from defeat. Brought before the people of the Reach to rally two more knights to his cause—another predicament courtesy of Prince Aerion (Finn Bennett), who invokes a trial of seven after Dunk put a fist through his royal visage—the silence that meets him is stunning. The Brute Of Brackyn breaks the tension with wind, a comic and concise shorthand for the kind of honor this world more often must suffer. With that stink, a question hangs in the air: What hope does a good man have against the powerful, cruel, and indifferent?
Take comfort in knowing Dunk’s kindness is what has gotten him this far, despite last week’s dramatic detour. That’s the moment when Aerion, offended by Tanselle Too-Tall’s (Tanzyn Crawford) slaying of a mummer’s dragon, snapped her finger in two. Dunk, driven by righteous indignation, put him on the ground—no less than what’s expected from a chivalrous knight. They vow to protect the innocent, he later reminds Prince Baelor, and even if he may have never said the words, he assessed an ugly situation with open eyes, saw an innocent threatened, and, with a just heart, took action. Predictably, the regret he feels as he stews under lock and key isn’t for defending Tanselle but for not seeing the real mummers’ show performed right in front of him by his newly entrusted squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell).
“It’s just a bit of bad luck we found each other, isn’t it?” Dunk says to Egg, who enters the dungeon in the colors of his house and with tears in his eyes. The way Dunk speaks to the boy is a far cry from their sweet monkeyshines from episodes past, though his curt retorts to Egg’s apologies are more him grasping the enormity of the boy’s importance to the realm than hostility born from betrayal. Egg’s uncle is the Hand Of The King. His true name is Prince Aegon V Targaryen, a name shared with four kings—including the Conqueror. More than that, he’s a little boy who wanted nothing more than to squire for his brother Daeron (Henry Ashton), who instead shaved the boy’s head and drank the tourney away in hiding. Would he have squired for a donkey under the circumstances? Maybe. But he wound up with Ser Duncan to their mutual benefit.
While Egg’s motivations are understandable and even forgivable, Prince Baelor points out—firmly but fairly—that little Aegon should never have brought Dunk to Tanselle’s rescue; that was no kindness. “One need not intend harm to do it,” he says. Baelor, like Egg, knows which members of their house are trouble, but family remains family, for good or ill. “The septons say we must love our brothers,” Baelor says, understanding both Egg’s anger and the mechanisms that keep House Targaryen in power. It’s interesting that Baelor invokes the Faith Of The Seven here. As Dunk later discovers, Targaryens use their adopted religion not just to assimilate into the realm they conquered, but to their advantage when it benefits them, as Aerion soon proves.
Equally telling is how deftly Baelor navigates his family’s latest tantrum, stating the case made against Dunk while seeing right through it. Aerion casts Tanselle’s puppet show as high treason (innocent though it may have been, it was “far from wise, even in peacetime,” he says), and Daeron, found by his father Maekar (Sam Spruell), accuses Dunk of kidnapping Aegon as a robber knight. Whether Baelon believes any of it isn’t up for debate—he doesn’t, as Dunk eventually learns to his relief—but it hardly matters. Dunk laid hands on the Blood Of The Dragon, and that must be answered for. Still, this exchange reflects how tenuous Targaryen rule has become. Without dragons, the royal house must rely on the love of the people to remain secure. Yet love is hard to come by when dragons torment the smallfolk. Baelor knows this line between justice served and justice denied. He would make a magnificent king.
And now for Dunk’s latest pickle: finding six knights willing to face Aerion’s in a trial of seven. Ancient tradition holds, by Baelor’s telling, that if seven champions fight against seven in tribute to their gods, the guilty will be punished. (Note how Carvel looks at Bennett as he delivers the final line, direct but not without careful affection; also check his muted amusement as Aerion wriggles justification for his cowardice in front of Maekar.) Aerion finds his recruits easily—his lord father, drunken brother, and three Kingsguard are easy gets, as is the pliable Ser Steffon Fossoway (Edward Ashley)—while Dunk learns how cheaply justice can be sold when Steffon trades his brief oath for a promised lordship.
Yet where ambition attracts opportunists, justice gathers the worthy: Egg rallies Ser Lyonel Baratheon (Daneil Ings), the humbled Ser Hardyng (Ross Anderson), mad Ser Rhysling (William Houston), and Ser Beesbury (Danny Collins) by dawn’s light, with Raymun Fossoway (Shaun Thomas) offering his sword as a fresh knight as well. Only one knight remains—and if Baelor “Breakspear” makes Dunk wait, it’s not due to reluctance but the weight of donning armor against one’s own blood, even when the cause is so plainly just.
This takes us back to something Dunk says to Raymun before hope rides onto the tourney grounds at Ashford. “Maybe the gods figure this is what I deserve…for not knowing my place.” Everyone in Westeros has a role to play, big or small, and Dunk is no different. But why does it weigh so heavily on him? Look at the moment when Dunk considers the puppet head of Florian The Fool. It’s a striking image, Dunk pondering who he is and what he must become to honor the memory of Ser Arlan. (For the deceased ser’s part, that memory offers a good-natured shrug.) What use is a knight if he doesn’t defend the innocent? What more must he be to be truly good? For starters, he should be someone who is true to himself, who doesn’t hide what he really is. In the eyes of a mummer’s knight, Dunk finally sees what he’s been pretending to be—and realizes he’s got to drop the act if he’s to survive the morning.
The night brought stars but little hope. Yet just before dawn, Steely Pate gives Dunk his shield—with Tanselle’s parting gift of a shooting star over a mighty elm and all the hope it carries. Pate describes the work he’s done to refurbish Dunk’s shield, but he may as well be speaking about Dunk, who willingly bears the burden of truth earned the hard way. “It’ll be heavier now,” he says. “But stronger, too.”
Stray observations
- • “How many Aegons have been king? “Four. Four Aegons.” Enough to make an omelet.
- • A fun and revealing moment occurs when Aerion drops his walnut on the floor. The duty to pick it up falls to the Lord Ashford (Paul Hunter), who sits at the end beside his liege lord Tyrell (Steve Wall). Everyone understands their place in this world—except, perhaps, for Dunk. But he’s learning.
- • Steffon devouring the core of an apple right down to the stem before betraying Dunk for Aerion is a colorful way to articulate the future bifurcation of House Fossoway into Reds (Steffon) and Greens (Raymun). Dunk’s impact on the realm is already being felt.
- • Dunk balked at helping Ser Androw Ashford throw a joust, but happily accepts Daeron’s offer to feign his participation as one of Aerion’s seven. As Daeron says, life has its many ironies.
- • Daeron’s prophetic dream foretells a dead dragon, yet there are so many dragons on that tourney field.
- • Clock Ser Lyonel’s face when Dunk struggles to pull his sword for Raymun’s anointment. Is his hesitance due to Raymun’s admirable nobility, or does something else stay his hand? Given the vagueness of Ser Dunk’s knightly status, it’s not difficult to see why Lyonel rescues Dunk from further embarrassment. He knows what makes a true knight, and Dunk fits the bill.
Jarrod Jones is a contributor to The A.V. Club.