Does It Matter If Dunk Was Really Knighted on ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’?

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms kicked off its run with a makeshift funeral: Dunk (Peter Claffey) buries Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), his longtime master, on a muddy hillside. It’s a turning point for the former squire, who decides to take Ser Arlan’s sword and head to the nearby tournament at Ashford to try his luck. After all, he’s a real knight now. Or… is he?

It’s unclear if Ser Arlan actually got around to knighting his protégé before he passed. But Dunk’s nervousness when he’s teased by the steward at Ashford—who jokingly (but convincingly) warns him of the hideous torture that awaits any man who pretends to be a knight—suggests maybe the ceremony didn’t quite come to pass.

Later in episode one, “The Hedge Knight,” Dunk blurts out that the sword he carries is rightfully his, a statement so odd even self-involved Ser Steffon Fossoway takes note of it.

But, in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter if Ser Arlan knighted Dunk—or are the life lessons and innate heroism that “Ser Duncan the Tall” carries within him more important? A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner, Ira Parker, makes a solid point for the latter.

Speaking on the official Game of Thrones podcast (via Winter Is Coming), Parker said it’s more important to consider what makes a good knight, rather than whether or not an official ceremony happened.

“It’s not like it’s an easy thing to do. It’s not like anyone can just stand up and say, ‘I am a knight; here we go.’ You need things. You need horses, you need armor, you need to be able to fight … These guys are professional fighters,” Parker pointed out.

He continued. “I think that’s ultimately, hopefully, what it comes down to, whether or not you have the name and the arms and the armor… you don’t even have to be a good person; you don’t even have to be a moral person. But if you try and help out in the immediate vicinity, you don’t have to go off and change the entire course of history in the realm. You just have to help the guy next to you that’s struggling at the moment. And I think Dunk… as we will see, sort of takes that as his guiding light, and you know, maybe gets him in a little bit of trouble.”

You can check out the full interview here; it starts around 24 minutes in:

Follow that trouble when new episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms arrive Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.

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