Did Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms Just Confirm My Theory On Dunk’s Knighthood?
Dunk’s honor may have given him away.
From the moment we meet Ser Duncan the Tall in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, it’s clear that one thing matters to him more than anything else: honor. He’s dead-set on becoming an esteemed knight, so he enters the lists at Ashford Meadow, but not before getting someone to vouch for him by asking around nicely. Unfortunately, this honor is his weakness as well. When Dunk sees Aerion Targaryen attack Tanselle during her puppet show, his dedication to protecting the innocent (and standing up for the girl he’s enamored with) causes him to leap to her defense and assault the prince.
But in the latest episode, Dunk’s dedication to chivalry may have just revealed one of the biggest questions surrounding Dunk’s past: was he ever really made a knight in the first place?
Warning! Spoilers ahead for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 4!
Dunk has trouble rounding up six allies to fight in the trial of seven against Aerion and his six.
While we see a lot of Dunk’s past in flashbacks showing his previous gig squiring for Ser Arlan Pennytree, we never actually see him get knighted. We see way more of Ser Arlan than we needed to and an entire montage of Dunk getting a clout on the ear, but there was no sign of what was ostensibly the most important moment of their time together.
This has led myself and other fans to wonder if Dunk was ever knighted by Ser Arlan, or if he just took on the title of knight after his mentor’s passing? As he told the Game Master, there were no witnesses to his knighting, and Ser Arlan just spat in the flashback when Dunk asked if he would ever be a knight.
In Episode 4, Dunk finds himself participating in a trial of seven, and to do so, he must recruit six soldiers to fight alongside him. Dunk thinks he has Ser Steffon Fossoway on his side to recruit aid, but he’s betrayed when Steffon agrees to fight on the other side for the promise of being made a lord. With Aegon’s help, he manages to scrape together a few more allies, but it’s still not enough. Raymun Fossoway, Steffon’s “unripe” cousin, asks Dunk to knight him so he can fight too. After all, he says, any knight can make a knight.
The betrayal of Steffon Fossoway leads his cousin Raymun to ask to be knighted.
But Dunk hesitates in actually reciting the words. At first, it’s unclear if this hesitation is because he doesn’t want his new friend to be in danger or if he feels unfit to make another knight, but knowing Dunk’s dedication to honor, it’s probably the latter. Ser Lyonel Baratheon sees this hesitation and Dunk lets him knight Raymun instead, providing even further evidence that Dunk feels unequipped.
This mystery is present in the books as well. After burying Ser Arlan, Dunk wonders if he should find another knight to squire for, which wouldn’t make sense if he was newly-knighted. In The Hedge Knight novel, it’s said that Dunk “knew what it was like to want something so badly that you would tell a monstrous lie just to get near it.” Plus, George R. R. Martin even confirmed at a convention all the way back in 2004 that he wasn’t knighted, though that isn’t technically canon.
Perhaps we’ll get an answer to this mystery soon, but since it’s never confirmed in the books, the show is unlikely to take a firm stance. But at the end of the day, does it really matter? Dunk has more honor than Aerion Targaryen and Ser Steffon Fossoway could ever dream of having, and that’s what really makes a knight, not a ceremony.
