Before you saddle up for this adventure, please be warned that there are spoilers ahead for episode six of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, “The Morrow.”
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has charmed fans for the last month and a half by serving up a slice of humble pie to the Game of Thrones franchise. We’ve been offered a chance to embrace the small folk and lament how easily and quickly power corrupts. Instead of watching a procession of royals attempt to play-act their own definitions of nobility while angling for power, this series has embraced the notion that blowing up the system and finding yourself is a much more potent recipe for success than onerous traditions.
After all, where does tradition get us anyway? As Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) will remind us in the closing moments of the episode, there are nine kingdoms in the realm, not seven. Update those history books, Westeros.
Instead of stuffy old oaths and incestuous royals, we’ve been in the corner of Ser Duncan ‘Dunk’ the Tall (Peter Claffery, Bad Sisters), a hedge knight with a fierce commitment to chivalry who believes that honor is more valuable than status. Even though Dunk is constantly punished for his virtue, we can’t help but root for a man who values honor over power. In fact, Duncan has earned the favor of almost every character he’s interacted with this season, and the finale was no exception. Let’s get into it.
We open on a banged up Ser Lyonel ‘The Laughing Storm’ Bartheon (Daniel Ings, Lovesick) reflecting on one hell of a tournament and trying to lure Dunk to a bromance back home at Storm’s End. It’s a lot of playboy posturing, but beneath the games, he has a real point: Prince Baelor ‘Breakspear’ Targaryen (Bertie Carvel, The Crown) may not have been the hero that Dunk (and the audience) respected so deeply – and he certainly didn’t assume the same level of risk as the other champions: “I fought for you. I – Hardyng, Beesbury, the fucking apple boy! We fought for you! Your Prince fought for you against men sworn to protect him. He risked nothing!” While this take rings a bit cold in Dunk’s ears, he bears the brunt of a whole new type of coldness after Baelor’s funeral (or “the roast” as Ser Lyonel calls it).
Where Ser Lyonel sees greatness in Dunk, Baelor’s son, Valarr Targaryen (Oscar Morgan, Gotham Knights) sees the same emptiness that Dunk sees in himself, asking why the gods would take his father instead of some nobody. Suddenly, the harshness of Ser Lyonel’s attitude seems practical, and we are left to wonder if our humble hedge knight might need to add some nuance to his take on knighthood.
Of course, Lyonel isn’t Dunk’s only cheerleader. A swaggering Ser Raymun “The Reluctant” Fossoway (Shaun Thomas, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children) greets his friend with unconditional respect and appreciation, a warm embrace, and the revelation that he has taken on his own coat-of-arms: an unripe green apple to contrast with the arrogance and disloyalty of his turncoat cousin.
While this is encouraging, we learn that Dunk’s has also earned the grudging respect of his enemies. While Prince Maekar Targyen (Sam Spruell, Fargo) doesn’t hide his bitterness over the humiliation of his son and the “whispers” that will always suggest that he may have murdered his own brother in a play for the throne, he is ultimately quite warm toward Dunk. He offers a plan to reform his deranged son, “Prince Aerion ‘Brightflame’ Targaryen (Finn Bennett, True Detective), who kicked off the Trial of Seven in the first place and even offers Dunk a full-time gig in his service (with some additional combat training of course) if he will keep Egg on as his squire.
Dunk turns him down: “I think I’m done with princes.” It seems he is ready to defiantly return to the hedge alone rather than play this sordid game of thrones.
But Egg won’t take no for an answer. When Dunk refuses to stick with his young ward, Egg is able to appeal to his code. His defiant statement, “perhaps you’re not the knight I thought you were,” is enough to prompt some soul-searching in the form of a flashback.
Here, the finale plays with the series’ biggest open question, did Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb, Pennyworth) ever actually knight Ser Duncan? Ser Arlan tells the tale of a local tradition in which knights called to war nail a penny to the oak tree in the town square, and remove it when they return home safely from battle. Unfortunately, not many men return home safely, and over the years, it became very difficult to find a spot to nail up a new penny. This story prompts Duncan to ask why Ser Arlan has never knighted him, and we are left to wonder if his reluctance to knight Dunk is an attempt to save him from a thankless game that nobody ever really gets to win. If so, Ser Arlan may have more in common with our gentle giant than we realized before.
Moving back to the present, Egg’s other royal brother, Prince Daeron ‘The Drunken’ Targaryen (Henry Ashton, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder), makes his own appeal for Dunk to take on Egg as his squire. It’s a simple reminder that the sadistic Aerion was once a bright-eyed young innocent, much like Egg is now. After this quick foray into the nature vs. nurture debate, Dunk begins to see that he may still have a chance to help shape a powerful son of the realm into a man of honor.
He returns to Maekar with a change of heart – provided Makear will accept his new terms: the humble way or the highway. Maekar refuses to condemn his son to the life of a peasant, but not from a place of narcissism so much as from a place of desperation; Maekar’s face betrays a more genuine and vulnerable fear that he only has one more chance to get this parenting thing right. How can he abandon his last son?
Dunk takes a beat to pry Ser Arlan’s penny free from the hilt of his sword and leave it as a keepsake on the trunk of the tree he used as a pavilion during the tourney. At this point, it seems Ser Duncan The Tall is truly ready to become his own man and his own knight.
Before Dunk can put this chapter behind him, Egg emerges from the treeline under orders from his father to serve Ser Duncan, and we spend our closing moments with the wholesome Dunk and Egg reunited … well the duo is somewhat wholesome. In the last sequence of the episode, we see Maekar looking around desperately for his son, only to realize Egg has run off once again. This won’t bode well for Egg, and his lie will likely put Ser Duncan in danger once again. When the final credits roll over Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons,” it’s a perfect way to leap through time and help viewers understand how much weight rests on Dunk’s shoulders. He is a humble, hard-working man, and that means he will always be asked to shoulder the burdens of the wealthy and privileged. It’s a shame to know our beloved duo is headed for trouble, but where would the fun be without dragon overlords to defy?
Despite this wrinkle, the emotional thrust of the story ends on a beautiful shot of Ser Arlan riding alongside the pair, only to veer off in a new direction and make way for what this high fantasy odd couple will build together moving forward. It’s a beautiful ending to a series that has gone to great lengths to veer from the course set by previous Thrones properties, and we hope you’ll join us for the next chapter when A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms returns to HBO. It’s like Ser Arlan says, “A true knight always finishes a story.”
