Remembering Ser Arlan
Dunk remembers traveling with Ser Arlan.
Dunk remembers traveling with Ser Arlan.

Having failed to convince Manfred Dondarrion to vouch for him, Ser Duncan the Tall goes about the tourney grounds at Ashford pleading with other lords who his master Ser Arlan of Pennytree served over the years. Arlan served with House Florent when their lord was blinded, and he even fought alongside the previous lord of House Hayford when he was killed at the Battle of Redgrass Field (during which Arlan's own nephew died), but they do not remember one hedge knight among many who fought for them years ago.

In narrated flashback, Dunk recounts his idolized views of Arlan as a great knight. In truth, Arlan was a decent fighter but is also shown to have enjoyed drinking and women. Far from a striking knight from popular romances, he was a slovenly wandering soldier who slept under roadside hedges much of his life. But he also trained Dunk as best he could in use of arms, and Dunk fondly remembers him singing traveling songs and them sharing a laugh over quiet moments. As they traveled on the road to Ashford, an infected wound on Arlan's arm was made worse by a chill he caught in the rain. Arlan put on a brave face about it, but even Dunk realized his master's health was in serious decline, which before long led Arlan to die under the tree where Dunk buried him the next day.

Egg asks Dunk why he cares what rude lords think of him.
Egg asks Dunk why he cares what rude lords think of him.

Back in the present, Dunk pleads to the last great lord present that Arlan served: Leo Tyrell, called "Leo Longthorn," a gruff and skilled warrior. Lord Leo pensively hears Dunk out while chewing sourleaf, then curtly responds that he never knew Arlan. As Dunk walks away with his new squire Egg, the boy wonders if Arlan really was a great knight when no one can remember him. Dunk insists he was, but Egg chides him for acting like these rude noblemen are his betters. Dunk admits that they are his betters given their wealth, power, and years of training.


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The Targaryens arrive
The Targaryens arrive at Ashford.
The Targaryens arrive at Ashford.

The entire tourney grounds are then stirred by the sounding of trumpets to announce the arrival of a royal delegation from House Targaryen, prominently carrying their red dragon banners. Egg grows nervous and says he should go back to their camp in the hedges to check on the horses to make sure no one has stolen them, to which Dunk agrees and then sneaks along to Ashford castle to see the royal princes.

Duncan the Tall meets Aerion Targaryen.
Duncan the Tall meets Aerion Targaryen.

A herald announces that the royal party is led by Crown Prince Baelor Targaryen, heir of King Daeron the Good as well as his father's Hand of the King - and also Baelor's younger brother Maekar Targaryen. Baelor greets Lord Ashford courteously, who introduces him to his maiden daughter Gwin Ashford, in whose honor the tourney is being held. As Dunk gapes at the royals and their finery, an arrogant Targaryen princeling rides by and in a bored tone tells him to see to his horse. The princeling is one of Maekar's sons, Aerion Targaryen. Embarrassed, Dunk explains he isn't a stableboy, to which the princeling responds mockingly that he must not have been clever enough, so he asks for wine and a wench. Dunk again apologizes that he isn't a servant at the castle, only a knight who entered into the tourney, to which Aerion glibly remarks that knighthood has fallen on sad times.

Aerion "Brightflame" Targaryen.
Aerion "Brightflame" Targaryen.

One of the Targaryen horses gets spooked from the large crowd of unfamiliar people and kicks a man in the face, so Dunk pulls it inside a stable to calm it down. He is surprised when he turns around and is approached by two knights of the Targaryen Kingsguard, wearing their signature stunning all-white armor. Ser Donnel of Duskendale apologizes to Dunk for Aerion's rude behavior, though Ser Roland Crakehall is more dismissive. Ser Donnel tells Dunk that Roland is also arrogant because he is a highborn, but Donnel himself is not: he is not a member of House Darklyn that rule Duskendale but the son of a crabber. This gives Dunk some renewed hope he can advance in the world, so, spotting a serving woman entering through a side door, he follows her to sneak into the castle and plead his case there.

Inside Ashford Castle
Lord Ashford receives Baelor and Maekar in his study, while Dunk watches from behind a grated door. He overhears them arguing about Maekar's other sons Daeron and Aegon. Gwin Ashford comes up behind Dunk to listen in as well, and whispers that the two princes have gone missing — there is fear they might be dead, and wars have started over less. She then playfully swats her hand at Dunk, calls him stupid, and hurries away. Baelor tries to calm his brother Maekar's fears, saying that Daeron has gone wandering off before and the Kingsguard will likely turn them up before too long. Baelor wonders why Maekar insisted on bringing his sons, given that they have as much place in a tourney as their own absent brothers Aerys and Rhaegel. Maekar accuses Baelor of insinuating Daeron is better suited to riding a whore than a horse, though Baelor tactfully tries to deny it, yet Maekar insists that Daeron will prove himself at the tournament.

Dunk pleads his case to Baelor Targaryen inside Ashford castle.
Dunk pleads his case to Baelor Targaryen inside Ashford castle.

Just then Maekar notices that Dunk is listening in on them from the door and demands that he stops spying. Nervous with fear in the presence of some of the most powerful men in Westeros, Dunk comes forward and says he was hoping to speak with them. He explains that the master of the games said he could only compete if he could find a lord who could vouch they knew Ser Arlan, but Dondarrion, and then all the others, said they didn't remember him. His final long-shot hope is that Baelor himself might remember Arlan, as he told Dunk he jousted with him many years ago. Baelor Breakspear, a gentle and kind figure, murmurs that he recalls that Arlan never won a tourney he ever heard of, but he never shamed himself either, and indeed he remembers facing Arlan in a joust years before held at Storm's End. Baelor also recounts that years before that in a different tourney, Arlan unhorsed the "Grey Lion" of House Lannister. Baelor asks Dunk to prove his knowledge about Arlan by asking if he knows the Grey Lion's real name, and after a moment's hesitation, he correctly recalls that he is Damon Lannister, currently the Lord of Casterly Rock.

Crown Prince Baelor Targaryen.
Crown Prince Baelor Targaryen.

Baelor smirks fondly, and notes that Arlan acquitted himself well in their joust, breaking four lances against him before Baelor finally unhorsed him. Baelor demanded no ransom from Arlan as was his right as victor but freely gave the poor hedge knight back his horse and armor: Dunk recalls that Arlan always said Baelor had the true spirit of chivalry and Westeros would be in good hands when he became king. Baelor smiles and says hopefully that day won't be coming too soon - realizing Baelor would only become king after his father King Daeron dies, Dunk grows even more flustered and profusely apologizes. Not wishing to antagonize the clearly out of his depth and terrified young man any further, Baelor kindly tells Plummer the games master that he sees no reason not to add him to the lists, and gently dismisses Dunk.

As Dunk turns to leave, Baelor reminds Dunk that he was not of Ser Arlan's blood, and thus by law doesn't have the right to continue bearing Ser Arlan's personal heraldry on his shield. Therefore, he'll have to come up with his own and have his shield repainted. With a mixture of abject terror and gratitude at a nobleman who for once behaved courteously towards him, Dunk hastily retreats out of the room in the wrong direction (and then corrects himself).


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The Dornish puppet show
The Dornish puppet show tells the story of Jonquil and Florian the Fool.
The Dornish puppet show tells the story of Jonquil and Florian the Fool.

Dunk then reunites with Egg at the Dornish puppet show, giving an elaborate performance recounting the legend of Jonquil and Florian the Fool. It is very impressive, with man-sized and highly decorated puppets moved by players hidden under all-black clothes - while Tanselle plays Jonquil herself in a large stilt-suit with wooden arms. Egg and the other children in the crowd are in awe, as are the adults.

After the show, Dunk awkwardly approaches Tanselle with Egg in tow and asks if she makes the puppets herself. She says that her uncle makes them, she only paints them - though the paintings are quite detailed. After Dunk introduces himself, Tanselle give them her name and notes that growing up boys always teased her as "Tanselle Too-Tall" due to her great height. The well over six feet tall Dunk, however, is smitten to encounter a beautiful girl who is also so tall he wouldn't need to bend down on one knee to kiss her. He can only blurt out that she's not "too tall" but just the right height - before trailing off. She asks what he thinks she's the right height for, but then Egg - disgusted at the hapless, love-struck oaf - interjects and says she's just the right height for puppets.

Dunk and Egg meet Tanselle Too-Tall.
Dunk and Egg meet Tanselle Too-Tall.

Dunk stammers out that he wants to hire her to repaint his shield with new heraldry, but when she asks what design he'd like he realizes he hadn't put any thought into it. He says it should be on a sunset-orange field, for Ser Arlan always loved sunsets. Egg then says to add a green elm tree, after the one where he made his camp as a hedge knight. Dunk agrees, then also says it should add a shooting star over the tree, as he saw his first night at the tourney and hoped it signaled his good luck. Dunk apologizes that he must seem quite the fool, but quoting Jonquil in the play, she says that all men are fools and all men are knights when it comes to women.

Dunk and Egg cheer after winning a tug of war game.
Dunk and Egg cheer after winning a tug of war game.

As they sit outside another tent afterwards, the pair watches a tug of war game. Dunk asks if that clearly embarrassing situation was ill-handled. Egg notes that she did agree to paint his shield, but Dunk cites that she agreed to do it for money - regardless of what she thinks about him. Egg commiserates that Dunk shouldn't feel too bad about himself, and wonders if he'll even be a knight one day, because unlike Dunk he is very small - even relative to other boys his age. Dunk responds that people used to say he was stupid, before leaving it at that. Egg is confused, as he thought Dunk was about to encourage him that one day he wouldn't be small anymore. They are then interrupted by Lyonel Baratheon inviting the large Dunk to join his side of the rope in the tug of war. Egg also joins in at the very front and nearly gets pulled into the mud, only avoiding it by pulling up his legs to hang from the rope by all fours.


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The night joust
Dunk tries to buy armor from Steely Pate.
Dunk tries to buy armor from Steely Pate.

As the day turns to evening, Dunk seeks out the blacksmith's row at the tourney grounds to purchase a full suit of armor for himself. He comes across the stall of Steely Pate, noting that his examples on display are good work. Steely Pate says he makes sturdy and reliable armor - it might not be as impressive looking as nobleman's armor covered in elaborate moldings of exotic animals and fruits, but it's more functional and more likely to keep a man alive if he takes a lance to the head. He tells Dunk that a suit of plain, good armor for a man his size will cost 800 silver stags. Not having nearly that much, he asks if he can trade in Ser Arlan's old helm and chainmail which do not fit him, but Pate says he doesn't resell work by other armorers. Taking some pity on Dunk, Pate says he could make use of the metal if he reforged them, but that would only bring the price down to 600 silver stags. Realizing he will have to sell one of his three horses, Dunk gives Pate the two silver stags he has on hand as a down payment and says he'll be back with the rest the next day. Dunk then goes to the master of horse at Ashford castle and sells Sweetfoot, Ser Arlan's palfrey horse that was as close to him as family. He gives the stableboy a few extra coins to make sure she gets an apple and he promises Sweetfoot that after he wins the tourney he'll have enough money to buy her back.

Dunk then sits down with Egg in another tent for a drink of ale while the boy has a cider, and says he hopes he has some chance of advancement at this tournament: he doesn't even need to be the final champion, simply win one jousting tilt, as even being champion for one hour before losing the next round might still get him noticed by one of the lordly Houses that have come to the tourney looking for recruits. Dunk says that if he's very lucky, he might even impress the royal House Targaryen into hiring him as a household knight. Egg grows nervous and says the dragon house isn't likely to hire mere hedge knights. Dunk retorts that Ser Donnel of the Kingsguard started out as a crabber's son. Surprised, Egg says that Ser Donnel's family - while not noble-born - still own half the crabbing fleets in Westeros and are in fact quite wealthy. Dunk asks how he knows that, and Egg meekly responds that he likes fishing. They are then interrupted, however, by horns announcing that the joust has begun.

The Ashford tourney begins with a round of jousts at night lit by bonfires.
The Ashford tourney begins with a round of jousts at night lit by bonfires.

At the whim of Lord Ashford, to impress his royal guests, the first round of jousting is unusually held at night but lit by large bonfires. Five different pairs of riders tilt at each other simultaneously along parallel lanes. Among them are Lyonel Baratheon, Leo Tyrell, and Medgar Tully, along with riders from House Ashford and House Hightower. Egg sits atop Dunk's large shoulders so he can see from the crowd, and notes that Baelor's eldest son and heir Valarr Targaryen is also competing in this round.

The joust begins with the thundering of hooves and crack of lances against shields. Several lances splinter but squires quickly hand fresh ones to the riders. A few men are unhorsed but manage to avoid being trampled by quickly rolling out of the lanes. The crowd is filled with riotous applause at the spectacle. Dunk himself is enthusiastic at first, but as the competition goes on his mood grows more serious as he realizes how skilled these trained and experienced knights are. He begins to fear that he might not only lose his horse and weapons in the dangerous jousting but lose his life as well.

Dunk realizes he is Ser Arlan's only legacy.
Dunk realizes he is Ser Arlan's only legacy.

At the end of the night the pair return to their camp in the hedges outside of town. Having been very excited by the jousting, Egg play-fights with a stick against imaginary enemies and after vanquishing them demands if the "Blackfyre bastards" will yield. Dunk, however, has been brooding over his own serious thoughts. He shares with Egg that he now admits Arlan wasn't a truly "great" knight: great knights don't sleep under hedges, live to be almost 60 years old without winning a single tourney, then die by the side of a lonely road unremembered by the entire world except for his lowly squire. He wasn't some chivalrous knight from romantic tales but drank and whored and was covered in dirt from muddy back roads. But Dunk concludes that even if Arlan wasn't a "great" man, he was still good to him and raised him as his own, saving Dunk from life as a street orphan. Dunk says that he is Ser Arlan's only legacy left in this world, and tomorrow all will see and judge what Ser Arlan's hand has wrought.

Hard Salt Beef

Baelor and Aerion embody opposing philosophies of power, and Dunk's journey measures the distance between them.

Aerion's Contempt for Dunk

Baelor's Memory of Arlan

Baelor Admits Dunk to the Lists

Maekar's Argument Over Missing Sons

Kingsguard Apology for Aerion

Baelor's Shield Law Correction

Dunk's Terror Versus Gratitude

Baelor and Aerion are not contrasting personalities but competing philosophies of what royal power is for, and the show is using Dunk as the instrument through which that competition is decided. Baelor treats a penniless hedge knight's dignity as worth preserving not out of sentiment but out of a settled belief about what a prince is for; Aerion treats it as sport because he holds the opposite belief. The gap between them has already structured Dunk's fate, and the show's implicit argument is that only one of these philosophies produces loyalty that cannot be commanded.

Two Princes, One Kingdom's Soul

Dunk invents a noble mentor from scraps of memory, transforming a nameless drunk into the hero his own ambitions require.

Flashback Contradicts Dunk's Narration

No Lord Remembers Arlan

Baelor Corrects the Lance Count

Dunk Admits Lords Are His Betters

Arlan Dies Without a Champion's End

Dunk's Doubt About His Own Prospects

Dunk is not grieving Ser Arlan so much as constructing him: converting a drunken hedge drifter whom every lord he served has already forgotten into a model of quiet chivalry, because that construction is the only foundation Dunk's claim to knighthood can stand on. But the show's structural argument runs deeper than psychology. The nobility has no mechanism for remembering men without houses or heraldry, which means Dunk has been conscripted as Arlan's sole surviving record whether he wants the role or not. The theory's sharpest claim is that these two operations, honoring the dead and replacing them with a more useful fiction, are not in tension below a certain station. They are the same act.

Dunk Mourns a Knight Who Never Existed

Honoring Arlan and Erasing Him Are the Same Act

Maekar brings his sons to Ashford not to compete, but to publicly humiliate Baelor and reverse a succession judgment already made.

Maekar's Explosive Accusation at Baelor

Baelor Questions Princes' Presence

Maekar's Public Insistence on Daeron

Missing Sons Raising Stakes

Brothers Arguing in Private Study

Maekar has already lost the succession argument inside the royal family, and the Ashford tournament is his last available move to reverse a judgment that has already been made. His sons are not there to compete in a joust. They are there because Maekar needs Baelor to be publicly wrong about them, and he has no other arena left in which to prove it.

Maekar's Sons Are His Succession Gambit

Aerion doesn't want to defeat Dunk in combat. He wants to strip his knighthood by attacking the very institution that granted it.

Aerion mistakes Dunk for stableboy

Knighthood has fallen on sad times

Escalating contempt after correction

Baelor and Aerion as opposing Targaryens

Aerion as likely tournament antagonist

Targaryen contempt without dragons

Aerion Targaryen is not building toward a physical confrontation with Dunk. He is building toward a legal one. The show has established that Aerion regards common knighthood as an institutional corruption, which means the moment Dunk competes beside him in the tournament lists, Aerion has grounds to challenge not Dunk's skill but his right to be there at all. The coming conflict will not be settled in the lists. It will be settled in a hall, with Dunk's title on the table.

Aerion's Contempt Signals Dunk's Targaryen Enemy

Egg's encyclopedic knowledge of royal genealogy and Kingsguard history betrays a childhood spent inside the Red Keep, not outside it.

Egg Play-Acts Blackfyre Combat

Egg Names Kingsguard Members

Egg Retreats at Targaryen Arrival

Blackfyre Rebellion in Living Memory

Dunk Dismisses Egg's Knowledge

Egg's knowledge of Kingsguard personnel and the Blackfyre Rebellion is not compatible with any lowborn or even minor highborn upbringing. It places him inside the royal court as a child, and his visible panic at the arrival of Baelor and Maekar indicates he is evading recognition by his own kin. The show has seeded a concealment that only makes sense if Egg is not merely noble but dynastic.

Egg Knows Too Much About Blackfyres

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Dunk's Knightly Identity Is a Fabrication Built Layer by Layer from Necessity

Dunk's Hesitation Discloses a Broken Chain: Two Fabricated Legitimacies, One Shared Silence

Arlan Died Before He Could Knight Dunk

Donnel Names His Trade, Not Scale

Egg Reveals the Fleet's True Size

Donnel's Cryptic Self-Made Answer

Dunk's Hope Anchored to This Story

Not of House Darklyn Framing