In episode 2 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Dunk appealed to houses Florent, Hayford, and Tyrell to vouch for him, because Arlan had fought for all of them, so that he could partake in the tourney. When they failed to recollect anything about his mentor, Dunk turned to the Targaryens, and luckily enough, he struck gold, because Baelor had a good memory, and he was nice enough to urge the gamemaster to accept Dunk’s candidature. The only condition that Baelor had was that Dunk needed his own sigil; he couldn’t co-opt Arlan’s sigil because he wasn’t related to him by blood. So, Dunk and Egg went straight to Tanselle and requested that she draw a new sigil on his shield, for an appropriate sum of money, of course, and Tanselle accepted the task. While waiting for the repainted sigil to arrive, Dunk sold Sweetfoot so that he could purchase some armor from Steely Pate, and while waiting for the armor to be made, Dunk and Egg attended the first jousting match. It was enjoyable at first, but with each passing second, the dynamic duo came to the realization that surviving, let alone winning, this tourney won’t be a walk in the park. Yet, Egg promised to do his best, and Dunk vowed to etch Arlan’s name in the history books of Westeros. What happened next? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Dunk and Egg Prepare for the First Joust
Episode 3 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms starts off with Egg sneaking away with Thunder while Dunk sleeps. No, he isn’t stealing the horse and running away; he’s training Thunder to become familiar with him while testing how well he can handle himself in a jousting match, where he’ll need to run back and forth to give Dunk his lances. It’s a pretty sweet scene, and Thunder and Egg’s chemistry is truly heartwarming. As they take a break, they are approached by Ser Robyn Rhysling, who wants to make sure that Egg isn’t a thief. Once Egg clarifies that he is Dunk’s squire, Rhysling goes away. What’s strange about this interaction is that Rhysling keeps referring to himself as “we,” and he also says something about doing the bidding of the Warrior. I don’t know what’s up with that. I have tried to look for more information about him but didn’t find anything substantial beyond what’s shown in the episode, which is that Rhysling lost his left eye while jousting with Lord Leo Tyrell. Also, House Rhysling’s sigil was the subject of speculation amongst fans, but the show has revealed what it officially looks like: it’s a giant door with iron bands on it. As for “the Warrior,” it’s a deity, and characters like Catelyn Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Arys Oakheart, Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister, Barristan Selmy, and Quentyn Martell have been known to pray to it.
Anyway, after that awkward conversation, Egg and Thunder return to the camp, only to find that Dunk is a little irked by Egg’s stunt. They have a small argument about Egg’s duties and what they should or shouldn’t have for breakfast. But since Dunk is a sweetheart, he realizes that he’s being too harsh on the kid and teaches him how to sew and then assists him in cleaning up Thunder. With all that out of the way, Dunk proceeds to vomit his guts out. No, he doesn’t have some kind of eating disorder; he’s just nervous about partaking in his first joust. Egg points out that a) he can’t enter the lists without his shield and b) the right of the first challenge goes to knights of high birth and renown. Neither is Dunk’s shield ready, nor is he a knight of “high birth and renown.” Which means that he spent all day being nervous for no reason at all. So, instead of worrying anymore about how he’s going to perform at the event, the duo goes to the market to buy some food. There, Dunk runs into Tanselle, who informs him that he’ll receive his shield in the evening. Egg spots how stiff Dunk gets when he’s around Tanselle and teases him about being in love with the puppeteer; it’s too cute to handle.
After having breakfast, they head to the tourney to watch some jousting matches and chat about what they are going to do in the future once the tourney is over. That’s interrupted by the gamemaster, who takes Dunk to the side to present a proposal regarding his upcoming match with Lord Ashford’s son, Ser Androw. So, Androw is a pretty formidable fighter, and it’s evident that everyone will be betting on him to win against a nobody like Dunk. Which is why the gamemaster has paid off Androw to purposefully lose the match so that the gamemaster, who’ll be putting all his money on Dunk, can score big. Both Androw and Dunk will get a cut of the winnings, and hopefully, nobody will suspect any kind of foul play. Dunk is a man of ethics, at least for now, and he doesn’t want his first win to come from a rigged match. The gamemaster points out the fact that Dunk has toiled a lot to reach the tourney, and he should treat this fabricated victory as a reward for his efforts. But does that mean that after “defeating” Androw, Dunk will be allowed to play every match in the future in a fair fashion? Or will he become the gamemaster’s puppet, having to do whatever the gamemaster says in order to stay relevant? Furthermore, does Dunk have the privilege to think about the nuances of how a tourney functions? Well, the gamemaster gives Dunk 24 hours to decide what he wants to do.
Aerion’s Jousting Causes A Riot
Dunk and Egg attend Aerion’s jousting match with the knight of House Hardyng, Ser Humfrey. Things start off on a somewhat promising note as the Dragon dodges the Hardyng knight’s jab. However, while having another go at each other, Aerion targets Hardyng’s horse instead of the rider and injures it in such a way that it takes a tumble and crushes Hardyng’s leg. Everyone in the arena recognizes this as an unfair move and begins rioting, thereby prompting the organizers to momentarily shut down the arena. Dunk notices that Egg is visibly disturbed by Aerion’s actions, and he takes the kid to the pub, where Lyonel is putting on a show again, to calm him down. They have a funny yet profound conversation, based on Lyonel’s song about a girl named Alice, about how one shouldn’t let their limitations define them; instead, they should be hopeful and make do with what they have, because something is better than nothing. While taking a walk through the market, Dunk asks Egg if he knows a great deal about his dad, who is Maekar, by the way, and Egg tells a white lie that he doesn’t because, technically, do we ever really know a person?
Even when it comes to our parents, we see the version of their persona that they present before us. But does that mean we really “know” them? So, yeah, in essence, Egg tells the truth to Dunk. As for Dunk’s father, he says that he was probably hanged for being a thief, because of which Dunk had a miserable childhood in Flea Bottom. This conversation is interrupted by a fortune teller, who predicts that Dunk will become richer than a Lannister, and that Egg will become a horrible king whose death will be rejoiced by the masses. We know that Dunk is going to have several chapters to his name in the White Book, but will he be richer than a Lannister? I doubt that. As for Egg, and spoilers from the books here, yeah, he’ll become King Aegon V Targaryen, and he will be one of the most benevolent leaders in the Seven Kingdoms.
However, Aegon’s benevolence will come with its fair share of criticism and revolts. And Egg, along with Ser Dunk and Prince Duncan, will die in the great fire of Summerhall. Although Egg is clearly perturbed by this prophecy, Dunk just pays the fortune-teller and advises Egg to not think about it too much. If A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms gets greenlit for the number of seasons that we’ll need to see Egg reaching his 50s, without overdoing that recasting time-jumping nonsense that House of the Dragon did, I think it’ll be interesting to see these two characters’ dynamic evolve, and Dunk remember this exact moment right before the fire engulfs them. Going back to the plot, Dunk and Egg run into Raymun, and while Dunk goes away with Raymun to have the Fossoway’s homegrown Cider, Egg attends another one of Tanselle’s shows and promises to get the shield from her after it’s over.
Egg Reveals He Is A Targaryen
Dunk and Raymun chat about how Steffon’s strategy is working out for him, Dunk’s match with Androw, Maekar’s sons, and the mishap with Humfrey. Dunk shares Egg’s theory that Aerion purposefully hurt Humfrey’s horse, which caused that major injury to Humfrey and killed the horse, while opining that it must’ve been an accident because a prince and knight couldn’t behave so horribly. Either Dunk is being polite, or he is just that ignorant about what the Targaryens are made of; hence, Raymun just goes on a massive rant about the Dragons and how they are the worst thing in existence. Raymun tries to downplay his comments by saying that he got a bit carried away, but it’s apparent that Dunk’s eyes have been partially opened. In the ending of A Knight of the Seven Kingdom episode 3, Dunk’s eyes are fully opened when Egg rushes into the Fossoways’ tent to inform the hedge knight that Aerion is hurting Tanselle because, in her play, she has shown a knight killing a dragon. When Aerion breaks off one of Tanselle’s fingers, Dunk goes into a fit of rage and hits the prince so hard that one of his teeth falls out. Aerion tells his men to knock out all of Dunk’s teeth by curb-stomping him. Egg intervenes, and as the son of Maekar, he orders all the men to stand down. When Dunk sees the Targaryen guards doing Egg’s bidding, he’s shocked to the core, thereby echoing the sentiments of all the viewers who haven’t read the books and thought that Egg was really a nobody.
Now, as mentioned before, we know that this particular revelation isn’t going to put a dent in Egg and Dunk’s relationship. Maybe there’ll be some momentary tension because Egg lied to Dunk, but in the long run, this revelation isn’t going to impact their bond too much. So, I don’t want to sit here and speculate about whether or not Dunk and Egg are going to go their separate ways because Dunk doesn’t want to fraternize with a Targaryen. In fact, maybe this’ll prompt Dunk to be friendlier with Egg because he aspires to be a member of the Kingsguard, and Egg will tell Dunk to treat him as his friend, not the future king. But that’s for later; right now, I want to talk about three things: fascists’ hatred towards art, Egg’s maturity, and the tonal shift in the show. The Targaryens are one of the mightiest families in Westeros. They have all the power in the world, and yet, Aerion can’t tolerate a small play about a knight killing a dragon. This happens in real life too, where politicians and businessmen, who have so much money in their coffers that they or their families won’t be able to spend it in a single lifetime, file defamation suits against artists to the tune of millions. It’s not like their revenue is being affected by those artists’ critique; they squash every form of dissent just because they can. The high they get by hurting people can’t be achieved through money, and much like the Targaryens, they don’t have the self-awareness to realize that they are hated for that kind of behavior, not their silver hair.
Egg is an exception. He is too self-aware, which is why he has shaved his head so that nobody thinks he is a Targaryen. But can you imagine how horrible your family must be that the youngest member, who is barely 10 years old, runs away to become a squire for a hedge knight, and that too after shaving his head? More than Raymun’s rant, I think Egg’s decision to sever his ties with the Targaryens is telling of what they are as a unit. At the same time, Egg is clearly aware of the weight that his name holds, which is why he uses it to save his one and only friend from being curb-stomped. And, yes, with that revelation, I think the show has shed its lighthearted tone and become a bit more serious, a bit more classic Game of Thrones-esque. You can feel the tension and the heaviness in the air that’s been brought upon by this whole interaction between Tanselle, Aerion, Dunk, and Egg. I wonder if this is how the rest of the season will be. I think it will, and maybe, if it gets greenlit for a second season, it’ll reset to that lighthearted tone again until something catastrophic happens. Anyway, that’s what I think of the show so far. What are your opinions on the same? Let me know in the comments section below.
