A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms 1×5 Reaction

18 thoughts on "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms 1×5 Reaction"

1. The books have never confirmed either way but it is heavily implied throughout The Hedge Knight that Dunk isn’t a knight, such as Raymun’s knighting scene or a line about how Dunk “knows what it’s like to tell a monstrous lie”. In my opinion, the story doesn’t work if Dunk is truly a knight. It’s a story about Dunk, a peasant boy pretending to be a knight, and Egg a prince, pretending to be a peasant boy. There’s a lot of layers to the story like this that make this particular work of George’s a masterpiece.

2. Despite some notable failures in this episode, I have to give such a shoutout to the armor in this show. Everyone wears their helmets! And it really shows why heraldry is so important for medieval battle, I love the bling and the antlers. Scholagladitoria did an excellent breakdown of the fight on his channel, including why Dunk is at such a disadvantage with just mail vs. plate (mail is better against cuts than stabs), you guys should check it out.

3. I just realized that right in the beginning of the episode when Dunk is hesitating to charge, Egg isn’t yelling at Dunk to go, but at the horse as they were training in the field during one of the earlier episodes.
   I also really liked the Mordhau move that Dunk used to drive his blade into Aerions leg. Pretty sweet!

4. I think that Dunk wasn’t “properly” knighted. We hear Lyonel say the Warrior, the Father, and the Mother, but before he mentions the Maid it cuts to Arlan shrugging. So I think Arlan got 3/4 of the way through but forgot the rest. But it shows that the vows don’t really matter, because Dunk embodies true knighthood more than most of them.

   Also, the entire oath only includes four of the Seven. So I think that the oath itself has been changed over time, that it originally included all seven but everyone’s forgotten what people were charged in the name of the Crone, the Smith, and the Stranger. Which would mean that nobody has, for centuries, been “properly” knighted. So no knight is more of a knight than Dunk, even if Arlan did forget about the Maid.

5. I’ve watched this episode three times now but still cried every single time Baelor died. I know GoT would not happen if Baelor survived but I hoped even for a moment that they would let Baelor survive in the show. I love him so much. :((

   Regarding Dunk being knighted or not, I think it’s implied throughout the show that he wasn’t but it was most obvious to me when he refused to knight Raymun. I hope they explicitly tell us in the last episode though or maybe if he tells Raymun, then perhaps he can knight him instead.

6. Dark haired Targaryen’s usually would make good rulers but they never live to see the throne usually.

7. I don’t think Arlan DID knight Dunk, but I know he believes it! And that is good enough for me!

8. Everything points to he wasn’t knighted by Ser Arlan, but I believe Dunk. If nothing else, it’s like what someone else said that I believe that Dunk believes Ser Arlan did.

9. I think dunk think’s he was knighted

10. I’d like to believe Arlan did knight Dunk but with how the show portrays him, I also think he wouldn’t want to send another boy off to death by knighting him, since in the flashback he’s probably drowning his sorrows after having lost his nephew in the Battle of Redgrass Field and it’s probably in honor of his nephew’s memory that Arlan saved Dunk at all.

11. Considering the question of “who is the heir now?”
    Remember Baelor has a Son, Valarr (we saw him in the first Joust scene )
    So he is the heir now, not Maekar (even Maekar is only the Fourth son of the actual king)
    And even in a scenario where Maekar would be the heir, his heir would be Daeron (the Drunk guy who was with Egg) not Aerion (he’s the second born)

12. I believe in dunk. A true knight he is

13. I think it’s okay to just give the answer at this point. It’s up to Eric to divulge, but there’s generally no reason to not reveal the answer to the poll because it’s actually already been answered in the show. We’re not going to get a better answer in the next 2 seasons, unless they just start adding a bunch of new, unrelated stuff.
    Also, at this point Maekar is 6th in line for the throne. Baelor has 2 sons, as well as 2 brothers between him and Maekar with a nephew from one of those brothers.

14. I have read the books, but the question isn’t answered in them either. But the evidence that it isn’t true has already happened. When Dunk refused to knight Raymond, many readers took that as confirmation that Dunk lied, since he didn’t want to ruin it for Raymond by letting him be dubbed by a fake knight.

1. I haven’t read the books, but that is what I took from that scene too. It also felt lightly implied at the very start when he was debating what he was going to do next.

15. Whether or not Ser Duncan was ever knighted is one of the more highly-debated questions in the fandom. To this day we’ve never been given an answer either way… Personally, I like to believe he wasn’t. There’s something so poetic about the most worthy man to hold the title of ‘knight’ never actually having been knighted. The complete opposite of someone like Ser Gregor Clegane, who was publicly knighted by Rhaegar Targaryen himself and went on to commit absolute atrocities, some of which were against Rhaegar’s own family.

16. I know there was discussion on a previous episode about if Ser Arlan even knew the words to knight someone, but they actually made a point in this episode to show Ser Arlan yelling “In the name of the mother!” when coming to defend young Dunk (the innocent) so I wouldn’t be surprised if he did know the words and knighted him. It doesn’t feel like Dunk to lie, so I believe it!

17. Fuck Its GOOD!