The first season of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms has concluded, but was Dunk ever truly knighted? Find out below.
The final episode of the Game Of Thrones prequel show aired on Sunday night (February 22) on HBO in the US and on Sky and NOW TV the following morning in the UK.
The show is based on the Tales Of Dunk And Egg novellas, and it stars Peter Claffey as the hedge knight Dunk and Dexter Sol Ansell as his squire Egg.
George R.R. Martin wrote the existing Dunk And Egg books between 1998 and 2010, and he has stated numerous times that he intends to continue the series in the future. They are set in the world of his A Song Of Ice Fire novels, which themselves remain incomplete, as the final two planned books are still unfinished.
The most recent book that Martin published in the series was A Dance With Dragons in 2011, with The Winds Of Winter set to be the sixth volume and A Dream Of Spring intended to bring the saga to its conclusion.
In a three-star review of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms season one, NME wrote: “By the end of this first season though, the relationship between Dunk and Egg has developed into something genuinely sweet. You’ll find yourself rooting for Claffey’s klutzy knight as he tries to prove his virtue as well as his mettle. Considering that Dunk’s defining achievement in episode one is defecating athletically from behind a tree, that’s no mean feat.”
A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms is not the first prequel series to Game Thrones to make it to air – House Of The Dragon debuted with its first season in August 2022, and followed it up two years later with a second.
**Spoilers ahead**
Going into the season finale, the key question for viewers was whether Dunk’s claim to being a knight would hold up once he was put under real scrutiny.
Dunk had been referring to himself as Ser Duncan the Tall, claiming a dead knight had knighted him before he died, but it happened off screen and the events of the show never confirmed it. That uncertainty became dangerous when Dunk stepped in to stop Prince Aerion Targaryen from attacking a puppeteer, and Dunk struck the prince, a serious crime.
He is arrested and brought before the Targaryen court, where Aerion accuses him of assaulting royalty. Dunk insists he was defending an innocent person but the dispute leads to a trial by combat. Aerion demands a full trial of seven, meaning each side fields seven knights to fight.
Dunk has to find six men willing to risk their lives for him. Several Targaryen princes and notable knights take Aerion’s side and it is a violent and chaotic fight, with multiple deaths.
Dunk survives, and Aerion’s side is defeated. The outcome clears Dunk of wrongdoing. No one formally proves whether he was ever knighted, but the court accepts him as a knight. Egg, revealed to be Prince Aegon Targaryen, chooses to continue serving as his squire.
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