“They have really good puppet shows in Dorne!” — HBO/HBO Max’s six-part series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
La Salle University
harty@lasalle.edu
HBO/HBO Max’s six-part series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, is based on the first of three novellas by George R. R. Martin usually referred to collectively as the Tales of Dunk and Egg. The formula is that of a buddy film or series, or even a bromance. Paired are a hulking, rather thick hedge knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, a.k.a. Dunk (Peter Claffey), and a precocious bald-headed boy, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), who serves as his squire.
Hedge knights are the most errant of knights errant, wandering the Seven Kingdoms in search of lords to serve and deeds of derring-do to carry out. Theirs is a rough, unsatisfying, and unheralded life.
Such a knight is Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb) perhaps most notable for the length and girth of a shaft other than his lance, given a quick shot that we get of him emerging naked from a tent post-coitus. Ser Arlan sleeps rough as he wanders hither and yon with his squire Dunk, who as a boy was rescued from a life of penury in Flea Bottom. When Ser Arlan dies, Dunk, whom his master may or may not have knighted, decides to set out as a knight. Viewers of the series and readers of this review may recognize that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms shares this plot element (and several others) with Brian Helgeland’s 2001 film A Knight’s Tale, though the series does not have an as over-the-top musical score as the film does.
In the first episode, Dunk buries Ser Arlan and, after taking a very impressive public dump, heads off with Arlan’s sword, shield, and three horses to a great tournament being held at Ashford, where Dunk hopes to test his mettle and earn real knighthood. Stopping for a rest at an inn, Dunk encounters a motley crew, many three sheets to the wind, and leaves, unknowingly at first, with the bald-headed boy Egg in tow; Egg wants to serve as Dunk’s squire. But Dunk has a bigger problem; he cannot prove that he is indeed a knight and needs someone to vouch for his bona fides. In Ashford, Dunk and Egg watch a puppet show staged by Tanselle from Dorne (Tanzyn Crawford). In that show, a fiery dragon is slain by a knight. Dunk is immediately infatuated with Tanselle; Egg, with the puppets.
Dunk searches without much success for someone to vouch for him until Prince Baelor Targaryen (Bertie Carvel), remembering Ser Arlan’s service to him, agrees to do so. Dunk needs to create his own coat of arms and turns to the talented Tanselle for help. He then sells his favorite horse, Sweetfoot, to the blacksmith Steely Pate (Youssef Kerkour) for a suit of armor. Dunk waxes and wanes in his enthusiasm for the tournament and the life of a knight, especially when he is asked to participate in a rigged tournament designed to recoup the funds spent to stage the event.
As the series progresses, the politics behind the tournament come into relief. Nearly everyone hates the Targaryens—and not without reason. When they are not drunken cowards like Daeron (Henry Ashton), they are cheating bullies like his brother Aerion (Finn Bennett). When Aerion watches Tanselle’s puppet show, he reacts with violence, breaking her finger for insulting his family, tied as they are to dragons. Dunk then attacks Aerion knocking out one of his teeth. Only Egg’s intervention saves Dunk, because it turns out that he is Daeron and Aerion’s younger brother who shaved his head of the telltale familial silver locks because he is ashamed to be identified with his older brothers.
Dunk is then arrested when Daeron asserts that he kidnapped Egg. Targaryen word seems to be law, but Dunk asks for trial by combat, which he is granted on the condition that he engage in an ancient ritual known as the Trial by Seven—two sets of seven knights battle each other to determine who is innocent or guilty. Aerion assembles a group of six impressive knights, but Dunk keeps coming up short until none other than Baelor Targaryen declares for him to uphold the honor of knighthood.
The ensuing tournament is a muddy and bloody mess; horses are slaughtered, and knights are maimed, until a badly wounded Dunk forces an equally badly wounded Aerion to yield. The victory proves Pyrrhic, as Baelor collapses dead into Dunk’s arms on the field of battle. Dunk is abject in his grief over the prince’s death and once again unsure about how much he really wants to be a knight.
Maekar Targaryen (Sam Spruell), mindful of his late brother’s kindnesses to Dunk, invites Dunk to Summerhall to complete his proper training as a knight and to tutor Egg in the duties of a squire. Dunk demurs, and says that he is only willing to squire Egg on the road. Maekar refuses Dunk’s counterproposal, so Dunk rides off on his own, soon joined by Egg who lies and says that his father has changed his mind about Dunk squiring him on the road. The two then set off to explore the Seven Kingdoms—though Egg allows there are nine, not seven, kingdoms (an altered final title card inserts a 9 over the 7)—beginning, Egg insists, with Dorne because “they have really good puppet shows in Dorne!”
The events in A Knight of the Seven [or Nine] Kingdoms take place almost a century before those in A Game of Thrones. A second and third series are promised dramatizing the remaining two books in the Dunk and Egg trilogy. Much lower budgeted and differently focused than Thrones, Knight nonetheless references and anticipates the internecine strife than informs the chronologically later, dynastically-focused series. But Knight is intentionally microcosmic. It is not concerned with the rise and fall of great kingdoms. No one unharnesses any dragons to lay waste to cities and towns—the only dragon is a puppet. There are no great castles or cites, no windswept vistas or enchanting isles; instead of epic battles, we get a ragtag tournament fought in a seemingly endless downpour—the sun rarely shines. The cameras point downward at the earth and mud and at the people who eke out their existence there as peasants, prostitutes, tradespeople, petty bureaucrats, and the fringes of the noble and royal societies celebrated in Thrones.
Knight focuses on the glue that supposedly holds all the seven, or nine, kingdoms together: knighthood. It offers a variation on the Arthurian theme of the fair unknown. Dunk, born in the slums of Flea Bottom, eventually becomes the hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall—a man trying to rise up in a society that keeps pushing him down. He is not the brightest, though he certainly doesn’t lack determination. The series pairs him with an at first unlikely sidekick, Prince Aegon Targaryen, a bald-headed boy wise beyond his years. Fascinated as any child might be with puppets, Egg at the same time trains Dunk’s battle steed, constantly gives him pointers about knighthood, and seamlessly switches from funny to straight man in his banter with Dunk—nuance is not Dunk’s strong suit, but it is Egg’s forte! Cable and television in general have recently offered few buddy/road series as quietly enjoyable as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and I certainly look forward to seasons two and three, and the further adventures of Dunk and Egg—and, of course, to more of those Dornish puppet shows!
A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS, created by Ira Parker and George R. R. Martin, based on Tales of Dunk and Egg by George R. R. Martin; produced by Friendly Wolf Productions, GRRM, and HBO Entertainment; six episodes running 30-42 minutes; first broadcast on HBO/HBO Max 18 January to 22 February 2026.
