Before you saddle up for this adventure, please be warned that there are spoilers ahead for episode five of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, ‘In the Name of the Mother.’
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has offered Game of Thrones fans a refreshing change of pace. The series has served up countryside vistas, puppet shows, and breakfast sandwiches seasoned with a healthy dose of irreverent humor. We’ve rolled our eyes at narcissistic nobles, celebrated an honorable heir to the Iron Throne, and fallen in love with a certain hedonistic knight who has a thing for antlers. If that’s not enough, the wholesome odd couple at the center of the story is dripping with enough charm to keep us coming back for more. We are feasting.
At the core of all that goodness is the premise that serves as this show’s beating heart: a knight’s vow should be sacred. It’s a beautiful sentiment that spits in the face of the self-serving machinations that define the “game of thrones” we’ve been celebrating for fifteen years now.
As a result, it’s even more jarring when ‘In the Name of the Mother’ assaults viewers with the harsh reality that those noble vows vanish the moment those battle horns start ringing in your ears.
This episode offers up wall-to-wall discomfort. While nobody really expected Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffery, Bad Sisters) to shine at the tourney, we also didn’t expect him to get a lance shard to the abdomen on the very first pass. Ser Duncan gets knocked around like a rag-doll for a bit, falls to the ground, and blacks out as the mud of the tourney grounds fills his helmet.
At this point, the episode shifts to a flashback. Ser Duncan is out of the picture, and “Dunk” is centerstage. In fact, we won’t see the chivalrous knight return until the closing moments of the episode. Expanding on the source material, the episode paints a complex picture of the boy who would eventually grow into our beloved Hedge Knight.
We open with a picture of Dunk’s less innocent side. Not only do we see him scavenging corpses on a fresh battlefield for money, but when a nearby corpse turns out to be not quite dead yet, a bewildered Dunk is quick to help put the suffering noble out of his misery. While his intent is kind, it’s to see our sweet little guy surrounded by so much pain – even if his friend convinces him that they might be able to make a quick buck if they can keep him alive long enough.
Of course, Dunk is also still the bright-eyed, sweet summer child we’ve come to know and love. He hasn’t given up hope that his absent mother might suddenly return and whisk him away to a life of happiness, and he is reluctant to demand more from life; he is willing to believe that living by candlelight in a Fleabottom crawlspace might just be the best the world has to offer. Of course, Dunk’s trusting nature doesn’t end there. We learn that before he became the squire to Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb, Pennyworth), Dunk loyally followed his streetwise friend Rafe (Chloe Lea, Dune: Prophecy).
Rafe is a fast-talker with a strong sense of dignity and a deep desire to rise above her circumstances. In fact, all of that corpse-scavenging was just part of her scheme to raise enough money for passage abroad; she wants to lead a life of adventure with Dunk by her side. Unfortunately, Rafe’s thieving puts her at odds with a corrupt Gold Cloak who ultimately slits her throat. An enraged Dunk takes to biting and scrapping with no regard for his personal safety, and ultimately takes a spear to his leg; as his assailant closes in to land the killing blow, a voice rings out: “In the name of the Mother, leave that boy be!”
Enter: Ser Arlan of Pennytree. Half-drunk and stumbling, the aging knight manages to dispatch Dunk’s attackers in a messy back-alley brawl. His sentiment is noble, but there is nothing noble about the action sequence itself. Ser Arlan even serves up a severed head to some nearby pigs in a move that feels straight out of Hannibal (2001). A rapt Dunk starts following this curious drunkard-knight, and we know he will never stop until he buries Ser Arlan in a shallow roadside grave many years later.
While we ultimately reach a hopeful note with Dunk finding a new companion (not to mention Ser Arlan’s drunken Dothraki singing), the entire flashback keeps with the theme of discomfort established early in the episode. From the corpse-strewn battlefield to the rat-infested slums, it’s hard to see how much Dunk has suffered in life. All of the back-alley violence is brutal, but the most painful detail is Rafe’s extended death sequence. We are forced to watch her physical pain alongside Dunk’s emotional anguish in a slow-cooked stew of misery.
But the episode’s commitment to discomfort doesn’t end there.
When Dunk reawakens in the present, he is half corpse, half punching bag. He gets lanced, maced, flailed, and stabbed around the battlefield while the spry Prince Aerion ‘Brightflame’ Targaryen (Finn Bennett, True Detective) offers up hit after hit. It’s an unending onslaught of suffering, and this reviewer spent the duration of the episode physically squirming around in his seat, longing for the good vibes that have defined the series so far.
If that weren’t difficult enough, we are also forced to watch Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) look on in anguish as his best friend is brutalized by his sadistic older brother; it’s a riveting performance from the young performer as we can see both Egg’s real-time pain and the insidious emotional pain caused by the knowledge that he helped create the horrors playing out before him.
It’s worth shouting out the expert execution of this battle sequence. Despite the fact that the previous episode ended with an unironic, swelling Game of Thrones score, it remains clear that we are watching a different series. There is no glamor or nobility to this battle. We are locked in Dunk’s point of view and can only track the larger flow of the battle through careful freeze-framing. We are stuck in the same chaos and confusion that forces Dunk to ignore chivalry and fall back on the back-alley survival tactics he learned as a street urchin. Additionally, some incredible art design helps sell this scrappiness. While Dunk sways around like a Redwood tree in his heavy armor, the small, almost reptilian Aerion slithers about with cruel agility. This may not be the type of action viewers expected, but its gritty realism is an impressive accomplishment – and purposeful one.
Overall, this is a brutally effective episode. It’s painful to watch, but it does make it all the more impressive when a dazed Dunk somehow snaps out of his battle stupor to drag the sniveling Aerion before Lord Ashford (Paul Hunter, Cinderella) for a formal withdrawal of his charges. In this moment, Dunk once again becomes Ser Duncan the Tall; finally, humility and humanity triumph over entitlement and self-interest.
Of course, the episode still has some pain to unleash on the audience. At first, it looks like Dunk’s victory will offer a shortcut to everything he thought he wanted: an invitation to serve Prince Baelor ‘Breakspear’ Targaryen (Bertie Carvel, The Crown) as part of a noble house. Unfortunately, Baelor starts to get a bit incoherent. When Ser Raymun “The Reluctant” Fossoway (Shaun Thomas, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children) and Steely Pate (Youssef Kerkour, Home) remove his helm, they quickly discover that a big ol’ hunk of Baelor’s head is missing. It doesn’t take long before he collapses in Dunk’s arms and sets up what’s sure to be some very messy fallout.
Of course, the gore and the shock are only the tip of the iceberg; the most painful part of this development is watching a good man get punished for his selflessness. Change never comes cheap.
Until next week, we can only hope that business is booming for Steely Pate after his armor endured the most brutal beating ever inflicted upon a single knight in a single battle – all in front of the assembled lords of the realm. You can’t buy that kind of advertising.
