Is Ser Dunk the Tall really a knight? Fans don’t seem to think so, but they also don’t mind either way.
Warning: there are spoilers for A Knight of Seven Kingdoms episode 4 below, as well as book spoilers.
In A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Dunk hesitates when it comes time to knight Raymun. Lyonel Baratheon takes over, and we see Dunk imagine himself kneeling before Ser Arlan of Pennytree… who just shrugs. This key scene, in addition to a specific paragraph from the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, sort of makes it seem like Dunk isn’t a knight at all. “Dunk looked at him thoughtfully,” the paragraph reads. “He knew what it was like to want something so bad you tell a monstrous lie just to get near it. ‘I thought you were like me,’ he said. ‘Might be you are. Only not the way I thought.'”
There also hasn’t been a true flashback to Dunk’s knighting, as the flashbacks to being Ser Alan’s squire have really only involved him getting a clout on the ear and receiving some not-so-encouraging words. Some fans think it’s pretty dang obvious that he was never knighted, but Dunk has all the personality traits of a true knight… and that’s really what matters.
“I haven’t read the books, but from this quote alone I feel like maybe Arlan didn’t actually knight him but just told him he’d make a good knight or something, so Dunk went to the tourney like, ‘Well, I may not be a REAL knight, but I’m going to be a GOOD knight for Ser Arlan,” one fan posited.
“The beauty of it lies in the idea that he is not officially one, but he is one in every way that actually matters,” another wrote.
“Not in name but in deed the truest one,” one person said.
“The point of the story is that Ser Duncan is a true knight despite never having been knighted, because he actually lives by the vows that knights take, while nearly all ‘real’ knights do not,” wrote another.
George R. R. Martin weighed in all the way back in 2001, point-blankly telling a fan website that he can’t confirm or deny whether or not Dunk is a true knight… so there’s that.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms airs weekly on HBO. You can keep up to date with our A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms release schedule, or see our 4-star A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms review for our spoiler-free thoughts on the entire show.
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