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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Officially Confirms the Biggest Dunk Theory After 28 Years
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ Season 1 finale makes a big reveal about Ser Duncan the Tall, confirming one theory that’s been held for many years. The TV show has largely been a faithful adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s first Dunk and Egg book, The Hedge Knight, but has also been able to expand on some things as well. This has included characters like Lyonel Baratheon and Ser Arlan of Pennytree getting more focus, and it extends to one character moment in the finale that’s of particular importance. Warning: SPOILERS ahead of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1, Episode 6.
The finale features one final flashback to Dunk’s time with Ser Arlan, where he hears the story of young knights going off to battle and nailing a penny to the tree where they lived, hence the name Pennytree. This is also the scene where Arlan dies, placing it right before we meet Dunk in the first episode of the show. But, most crucially of all, is that it confirms Ser Duncan the Tall was never actually knighted. He’s been living a lie all this time, something book readers have speculated upon from the very beginning.
Clues Dunk Wasn’t Really Knighted
The book and show both have several hints that Dunk isn’t knighted, mostly stemming from his own behaviour and inner thoughts. For instance, one of the first ideas he has after Ser Arlan’s death is that he could perhaps go and be a squire for some other knight, which wouldn’t really make sense for someone who had already been knighted.
The show had more of a visual clue early on: whenever Dunk would mention something Arlan did, like hitting him, it’d always flashback and show the scene. There was never a flashback to him being knighted, a subtle clue that such a moment never took place.
There are other small moments, as well. For example, he tells Ser Steffon Fossoway that his sword is “mine by right,” which prompts the other knight to remark that it’s an “odd thing to say.” In the book, after learning of Egg’s identity, he thinks about knowing what it’s like “to want something so badly that you would tell a monstrous lie just to get near it.” We never see Dunk say anything else that could constitute this lie, suggesting it’s his knighthood that is the falsehood.
Because the books don’t outright confirm it, this sort of thing continues throughout the novellas, such as this passage in The Sworn Sword:
“A hedge knight named Ser Arlan of Pennytree took me on to squire for him when I was just a boy. He taught me chivalry and the arts of war.”
“And this same Ser Arlan knighted you?”
Dunk shuffled his feet. One of his boots was half unlaced, he saw. “No one else was like to do it.”
Another of the major clues in both the book and show is the knighting of Raymun Fossoway. Dunk refuses to be the one to do this, despite the fact that any knight can make another knight. In fact, he says he “should not” do it, which is because he knows he wouldn’t be truly knighting Raymun, and only deepening the lie and thus his own guilt. And then, right in the finale, in the moment just before the reveal, Egg says that Dunk may not be the knight he thought he was, leading right into the flashback showing just how true that is.
Why Didn’t Ser Arlan Knight Dunk?
Because the books haven’t explicitly confirmed it, and because Ser Arlan is dead from the beginning, there’s no confirmed answer as to why Ser Arlan didn’t knight Dunk. Still, there are likely a couple of reasons. One possibility that has been theorized previously is that Arlan himself wasn’t truly a knight, thus adding to the theme of what a true knight really is. However, I don’t personally buy that: it seems a bit much to have both of them be “fake” knights, and there’s enough history of Arlan, including fighting against Baelor, that it just makes sense for him to have been one.
More likely, I think, is that Arlan did not want to lose Dunk. He needed a squire, and he’d already lost one, his nephew, Roger, at the Battle of the Redgrass Field during the Blackfyre Rebellion. If he knighted Dunk, then chances are he’d leave him sooner rather than later, and Arlan would be left alone as an old man without anybody to do a squire’s work for him. A more generous reading of this is that Arlan cared for Dunk like a son, and wanted to keep him close and safe, and there’s probably some truth to both.
A more simple reading is that Arlan died before he could get around to knighting him, and maybe hadn’t considered him ready for it previously (as he does still have a lot to learn). His illness and death came on pretty swiftly, so he might have planned to knight Dunk eventually, but never got the chance. That’s also possible, and doesn’t necessarily preclude the other explanations either.
The Meaning Of Dunk Not Being Knighted
The irony, and rather the point, of Dunk not actually being knighted is present throughout the books and show: that he is actually the truest knight of all. No one said the right words and put a sword on his shoulder, and he may not be the most skilled with sword or lance, nor of noble birth, but Dunk is everything that a great knight should be. He’s honorable, decent, chivalrous, and most importantly, he’ll protect the weak and the innocent, no matter the risk or the cost. Compare him to someone like Steffon Fossoway, who is a “real” knight, and there’s no contest who the truer one is.
This parallels very deliberately with Brienne of Tarth from Game of Thrones. Like Dunk, she is not officially a knight, and cannot become one because she’s a women (though Jaime Lannister changes this in Season 8). And yet she is the truest knight in the entire series, who is loyal, brave, and will always protect the innocent and uphold her vows. It’s no coincidence that they’re so similar, because Brienne is actually a descendent of Dunk, though we don’t know exactly how they’re related yet.
Will Dunk Eventually Be Knighted?
Later in his life, Ser Duncan the Tall will rise to the highest possible station for a knight: Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Does he get there without ever becoming a knight for real? It’s certainly possible, because no one else knows that he was never knighted, but that position also makes his lie a greater burden to carry.
When Egg becomes King Aegon V Targaryen, I think it’s quite likely that Dunk confides in him the truth, and because a king can also bestow a knighthood upon someone, that Egg quietly, privately knights him, so that he can be a real, true knight at last.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will return for Season 2 in 2027. All six episodes of Season 1 are available to stream on HBO Max.
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