Ira Parker’s lively, enjoyable Game of Thrones prequel series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is mostly a faithful adaptation of The Hedge Knight, the first of George R.R. Martin’s three novellas about impoverished knight Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey in the series) and his squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell). Parker and his team added to the story here and there, particularly in an extended episode 5 flashback sequence that fills in Dunk’s backstory. But across five of season 1’s six episodes, the show follows Martin’s story almost line-for-line, right down to at least half the dialogue being taken straight from the book.
The season finale, “The Morrow,” is different. It reverses Martin’s story in one significant way. That tweak may not seem like much, since it doesn’t radically affect where the characters go or what they do — yet. It’s a change designed to set up conflict in season 2, rather than to alter the action in season 1. And yet this one alternation changes everything about the series’ characters and their dynamic, and as a fan of Martin’s work, I hate it. I hate it so much. Like, full-on Muppet Show flaily-arm steam-coming-out-of-my ears hate. I’m used to movie and TV adaptations of books making big changes, but this one really cuts to the heart — or cuts out the heart — of a story I love.
[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for The Hedge Knight and the season finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.]
In both versions of the story, hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey on the show) has to figure out the next steps in his life after his mentor, the fragile, aging knight Ser Arlan Pennytree, dies and leaves Dunk alone in the world. As Dunk is working on those next steps, he runs into Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), a child he initially mistakes for a stableboy. Egg doesn’t contradict this mistake, and tries to persuade Dunk to take him on as a squire. Dunk eventually learns, at a suitably dramatic moment, that Egg is actually a member of the royal family, the future Westeros king Aegon Targaryen V. The hedge knight is humiliated — but after a series of physically and emotionally shattering events, he learns that the young prince still wants to be his squire, and refuses to serve under any other knight.
The novella and show diverge here in minor ways. In Martin’s novella, Egg’s father, Prince Maekar Targaryen, offers to swear Dunk into royal service to train Egg, and to hone his own skills as a knight. But Dunk says he’ll take the boy only on his terms. Dunk plans to continue to be a hedge knight, traveling from place to place around Westeros and living rough, taking on whatever service he can find. He wants to expose Egg to the kinds of tough conditions and poverty that honed Dunk’s own sense of honor, and his empathy with the realm’s common folk — the things Egg’s villainous, predatory older brother Aerion lacks.
Maekar objects, incredulously: “Did the trial addle your wits, man? Aegon is a prince of the realm. The blood of the dragon. Princes are not made for sleeping in ditches and eating hard salt beef.” He stalks away in fury — but the next morning, he sends Egg to Dunk to begin training and their life of travel. Maekar gives Egg his blessing. And crucially for future stories, he also gives him a royal token that will prove his true identity while he’s on the road.
In the TV adaptation, that exchange goes similarly, though it’s delayed — Dunk originally refuses to take Egg on at all, telling Prince Maekar, “I beg your pardon, Lord, but I think I’m done with princes.” He changes his mind, though, after speaking to Egg’s drunken, cowardly older brother Daeron, who gently implies that if Egg is raised the way Daeron and their cruel, villainous brother Aerion were raised, he may turn out the same way. So Dunk returns to Maekar and gives the “I’ll take him on, but I’ll do it my way” speech, and is rebuffed in almost the same words. Then Egg turns up at Dunk’s makeshift camp in the morning in the same way and says that Maekar relented and is on board with Dunk’s plan. But the season’s final shot reveals that Egg is lying, as he has so many times in this season — he’s run off without Maekar’s permission, and Maekar is furious and frantic, wondering where his missing son has gone.
This change to the story is an obvious setup for conflict in season 2 and beyond, with the Targaryens potentially pursuing Dunk and his wayward squire across the Seven Kingdoms (or nine, as Egg points out), possibly thinking of Dunk as a kidnapper, or a traitor who defied the prince. It’d all be an excellent excuse to bring Aerion back from exile to be an ongoing villain, and to set up other Knight of the Seven Kingdoms favorites as recurring characters, rather than starting every season from scratch in a new locale, with all-new characters, as the novellas do.
But the change is such a betrayal of Dunk, and of The Hedge Knight’s most basic themes. At heart, The Hedge Knight is about the conflict between Dunk’s simple decency and honor, and the way Westeros’ more powerful and “respectable” people behave. Throughout the story, Dunk suffers at the hands of those aristocrats, who dismiss his mentor knight Ser Arlan as forgettable and unworthy of note, take Dunk’s near-death in the Trial of Seven as entertainment, and largely refuse to take his side even when he’s acting nobly and holding up knightly values. Defending a commoner from Aerion’s vicious abuse almost gets Dunk killed, and Daeron’s self-serving lies about Dunk add fuel to the fire. Virtually everything Dunk does in the name of humanity or empathy makes him a target for stronger, more ruthless people who find those values less important than prestige or bloodline.
Maekar reluctantly sending his son to train under Dunk at the end of The Hedge Knight is justice. It’s payback and payoff for everything Dunk endures throughout the story. Maekar is openly admitting that this ragged, near-penniless hedge knight knows more about knightly honor than the entire Targaryen family, and that Egg will benefit from his teachings. Martin writes the final scene of the story very simply, without sentiment or editorializing about any of these ideas, because everyone involved already knows that Maekar giving in to Dunk is a vindication and validation. In the quietest way, it’s as triumphant a moment in the story as Maekar’s older brother Baelor, heir apparent to the throne of Westeros, backing Dunk up in combat earlier in the story — and unlike that moment, Maekar’s capitulation to Dunk doesn’t end in gory, heartbreaking tragedy.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms taking that vindication away from Dunk, and making Egg’s squirehood just another lie, is such a betrayal of that triumph. It’s also a betrayal of the relationship Dunk and Egg develop, not just in A Hedge Knight, but in the other novellas as well. In The Hedge Knight, there’s a meaningful, important reversal of power, as Egg, a nobly born prince who grew up amid luxury, puts himself in the hands of a rough-hewn man from commoner stock. In this version, though, Egg’s squirehood is a lie and betrayal of Dunk. Egg is manipulating his mentor to get something he wants, and putting Dunk’s life at risk in the process. He’s even willfully, cavalierly repeating the exact same lie that nearly got Dunk killed earlier in the story. That makes Egg seem incapable of learning or of empathy or forethought, and it makes him far less likable. At the same time, it makes Dunk seem even more gullible and biddable, and much less of a worthwhile mentor.
Maybe this reversal is setting up an equivalent vindication for Dunk far down the line, if this series continues long enough. It’s impossible to know yet exactly how much impact the story change will have on season 2 and beyond. But just in this moment, right after the finale, it feels like one more way for a cruel, frequently bittersweet-at-best story to take a huge, steaming dump on Dunk’s head. In this version, he isn’t the hero who holds onto his values throughout an agonizing series of trials and ekes out a small but meaningful victory. He’s still just a big, dumb lunk who’s been screwed over by a Targaryen yet again, and is being set up to suffer for it.
The complete first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is now streaming on HBO Max.
