The Hedge Knight

Greetings fellow acolytes. Welcome to another episode of The Westerosi Primer. My name is Liz. If you’re new to this podcast, welcome! I hope you enjoy this journey of all things Westeros. And in this episode, I’ll be talking about The Tales of Dunk and Egg. In this case it is the first of the three released stories titled The Hedge Knight.

Before I get started with this episode, I need to state the obvious just in case. I want to emphasize that the upcoming spin-off series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, is based on this novella and any future seasons will be based on the other two novellas George had published. That means episodes 2 to 4 of this podcast season will likely spoil the events of the TV series. If you’d prefer not to be spoiled you can feel free to check out these episodes at a later date. If you want to read the story first before listening the rest of the episode, you’re more than welcome. We can be like a book club! I also want to make a note that the events of this episode were briefly discussed in episode 2.15 during the reign of Daeron II. If you haven’t checked out that episode, feel free to do so! As I indicated in that episode, this story that I’m talking about takes place in the year AC 209. With that said, let’s continue.

Just as a quick background on this particular series of stories. These were stories written for fantasy anthologies over the course of many years. In fact this story I’m discussing in this episode was released in 1998 as part of an anthology titled “Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy.” Next episode I’ll be talking about “The Sworn Sword,” which was published in 2013 as a part of “Legends II: New Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy.” And the third story, which I’ll talk about in episode 4 is “The Mystery Knight.” That story was part of the anthology “Warriors” in 2010. “Warriors” was co-edited by George R.R. Martin. Just so you know I’ll be repeating some of this info again in the next two episodes just in case new listeners check out this podcast for the first time.

Now that you know a bit about the publishing history of the novellas, let’s get into the basic plot. The second half of the episode I’ll be talking about some of the context of the story’s events and some thoughts I had about the story. The episode will end with a couple of housekeeping items to note.

The novella starts with a man we only know as Dunk. He’s burying a man in a modest grave. We find out the man Dunk is burying was a wandering knight named Ser Arlan of Pennytree. It’s not explicitly stated, but we can assume that Dunk was his squire. We can also infer from the narration and inner monologue, Dunk was still a squire and never knighted by Ser Arlan. It makes some sense because if Dunk had been knighted, there’s no guarantee that Dunk would have still been following Arlan around instead of going independent as a wandering knight himself.

After burying Ser Arlan, Dunk takes a quick inventory of Arlan’s possessions. Dunk decides to go about calling himself a knight even though technically he’s not a knight. This is a big deal, which I’ll get to in the second half of the episode. Dunk and Arlan had been on their way to the Tourney at Ashford when the old knight dies. Dunk decides to continue on the journey. His best chance at earning money and proving himself is to compete and be seen.

On the way he stops by an inn. He stumbles upon a drunk young man who mumbles about how Dunk needs to stay away from him. He also runs into a young boy shaved bald who he orders to take care of his horses. The kid is pretty sassy for a lack of a better description. The kid ultimately does what Dunk says and begs him to take him to the tourney. Dunk refuses and heads off the next day.

Dunk arrives at the tourney venue. He sees a puppet show and has a crush on the young puppeteer. She’s a Dornish girl named Tanselle who is working for her uncle who runs the traveling theater. But we don’t learn her name until a little bit later, but I’m giving you her name now to make it easier to keep track of her. Dunk then finds someone he definitely needs, an armorer. His name is Steely Pate and Dunk needs much better armor than what he scavenged from Ser Arlan’s possessions. Dunk needs to figure out how to get more money since new equipment isn’t cheap.

While he tries to figure this out, he runs into that bald kid who is begging again to be his squire. Dunk accepts the kid since he does need some help. The kid calls himself “Egg” which strangely fits given his bald head makes him look like an egg. Dunk introduces himself as Dunk, which leads to Egg asking if it’s short for Duncan. Dunk rolls with it and calls himself Duncan the Tall. He has no surname since he’s probably a street orphan back in King’s Landing. Incidentally he’s really tall like he’s described as being almost 7 feet tall.

Next morning, Dunk tries to register to fight, but has a hard time because he’s a no name hedge knight. He can’t find anyone to prove he’s a knight and the only other possible witness is Ser Arlan, who is dead. Dunk has three horses with him and he needs to sell one of them. Arlan used to ride Sweetfoot and saved Thunder for tourneys since he was a war horse. Chestnut is the horse that Dunk normally rode on. Ultimately it’s Sweetfoot who will be sold off since Dunk doesn’t need three horses nor does he have money to look after that many.

While he’s waiting to speak to the stable master for the sale, he sees a grand procession entering the grounds of Ashford Meadow. He sees members of House Targaryen have arrived including 3 of the Kingsguard. There are some Targaryens planning to compete. Some of them do have a reputation of being excellent knights, which makes the competition tough. Dunk gets mistaken for a stable hand by one of the members of the Targaryen party, who we will later find out is Aerion. Dunk uses process of elimination to figure out which of the many princes are attending the tourney.

Dunk sees the puppet theater and wanders around the tourney grounds. He observes the final preparations of the big tourney while people continue to arrive. Dunk finds a couple of young men training. The sigil is a red apple and he identifies them as members of House Fossoway. The older man snarks that his companion is an “apple that’s not ripe yet.” The older man is a knight named Ser Steffon Fossoway. The younger man he’s fighting with is his cousin Raymun, who is his squire. They have a brief conversation and Raymun seems to like Dunk well enough to matter later in this story. Dunk heads off to find Steely Pate to give him the rest of the money owed to get a proper set of new armor.

Dunk gets back to the small campsite he set up for himself. He had left Egg behind to protect and tend to the camp. He shows off his new gear to his sort of squire. In their conversation, Egg asks if he needs to go to the castle or not. It’s a rather odd question considering most street kids would want to see a castle if they’ve never been inside one before.

Presumably the next day, Dunk manages to find a knight, who is from a noble house. Dunk is hoping this guy would be willing to vouch for him. Of course that fails. Dunk is a pretty naïve guy despite his experience traveling around. Lords typically will have hundreds of knights serving him. This is especially true if they’re a really major lord. Even if they remember their knights, they’d only remember the best ones serving under them who are sworn to him as a household knight. Ser Arlan is a hedge knight and lords couldn’t be bothered to remember them. They’re not all that different from mercenaries or swords for hire.

Dunk tries to speak to Ashford’s Steward about allowing him to enter the lists and stumbles into a meeting between the Princes and Lord Ashford. We only get part of the conversation, but we see that one prince is concerned about his sons and complains the other person he’s talking to doesn’t care because they’re not his sons. Another man replies that “Daeron has done this before.” He also says that Daeron had no business being in a tourney any more than Aerys or Rhaegel. It seems from inference that the first man has two sons missing: Daeron and Aegon. The first man, who is the father of the missing sons, wants Daeron to compete to prove himself and thinks that because Daeron is 18, there’s still a chance for him to improve. Or else.

The second man points out that Aerion is still there and going to compete, so we can assume Aerion is another son of the first man. Now if you have listened to episode 2.15, you likely figured out that “first man” was Maekar and the second was Baelor. Both men are the sons of King Daeron II. Baelor is also known as Baelor Breakspear for his exploits in tourneys. He’s also currently the prince of Dragonstone aka the next king. Maekar is the youngest of 4 brothers so unlikely to become king. And as we now realize in the story he’s got at least 3 sons we’ve met.

Eventually, the two Targaryen brothers finally notice that Dunk is there and Maekar being his delightfully hot headed self basically asks our protagonist what the hell he is doing there. Dunk tries to explain his story yet again. Ashford explains he heard about it and argues there’s no proof and Dunk could have easily just stolen Arlan’s stuff. Interestingly Baelor interrupts and says does oddly enough remember Ser Arlan. They had actually jousted each other 9 years ago and the prince remembered!

Maekar wonders why in the world would his brother bother to joust a random hedge knight or even remember the guy. Baelor explains that the brackets basically paired him with Arlan. He remembered the guy because he makes it a policy to learn about his opponents. Ultimately Baelor convinces them to allow Dunk to joust since he sees no particular reason to deny him. So Dunk is officially in! Though it’s pointed out since he’s not related to Arlan, he can’t use the same sigil. So off Dunk goes to get a new shield!

He heads out and sees Egg watching the Dornish folk’s puppet show. They complement Tanselle for the quality of the puppets and the performances. Dunk asks Tanselle if she can paint a new original sigil for his shield: an elm tree with a shooting star above. The story then skips to the first day of the tourney. The tourney is hosted by Lord Ashford for his daughter who is turning 13 years old. The birthday girl is naturally the queen of love and beauty. The jousting portion starts off with 5 knights acting as her champions. The goal is that the other jousters are challenging the champions and by the end of the jousting event the five knights left in the place of honor can decide whether the birthday girl is still the queen or not.

We get into a series of exciting jousting matches, which I’m not going to describe here. You’ll have to read the story yourself if you want that. I will say the events dramatically end with a bout involving Prince Aerion appearing as a challenger. It’s pretty dramatic because Aerion intentionally targets his lance at his opponent’s horse. Ultimately the horse is severely injured and winds up crashing on his rider. Ser Humfrey Hardyng’s leg is severely broken and the event ends. Ultimately Lord Ashford declared Humfrey the winner probably because of non-sportsman behavior.

Later in the evening, Egg and Dunk run into Raymun Fossoway. Naturally they have a “I can’t believe what happened today” type of conversation about the tourney. Raymun invited Dunk to go have a drink and hang out basically. Dunk wanted to go look for Tanselle to get his shield, but Egg offers to go get it for him. Not unreasonable for a squire to do a simple errand for the knight he’s serving. Raymun and Dunk head off and continue talking.

At the VIP box there was an empty chair. It seemed that Prince Maekar wasn’t there likely trying to find out where his two missing sons are. With his brother not there, Baelor had to be the one to handle the mess that Aerion created with his dirty trick. It’s a pretty open secret that Maekar’s missing son Daeron is more interested in drinking and skirt chasing than he is in being a knight. Raymun jokes the prince was probably off drinking somewhere instead of being at the tourney. Hm… well gee this sounds oddly familiar.

Suddenly Egg runs to them shouting for Dunk. He only shouts “he’s hurting her!” Dunk is understandably confused with what’s going on. Egg replies that it’s Tanselle. Dunk needs to hurry because Aerion is the one hurting the poor girl. Dunk goes off to help. When they get to the puppet theater, they see a bunch of guys smashing things and wrecking stuff. Prince Aerion is twisting Tanselle’s arms as she begs for mercy. He proceeds to break one of her fingers.

This understandably has Dunk seeing red and he proceeds to literally throw some of the soldiers out of the way before punching Aerion in the face. Aerion notes that Dunk looks familiar and Dunk reminds him that Aerion thought he was a stable boy before. Aerion asks Dunk why would he bother with some useless girl and lose his life for assaulting a prince. Aerion decides to have Dunk killed.

Egg shouts for them to stop which Dunk thinks is stupid and tries to stop Egg. Egg makes it clear that they’ll obey him and actually the soldiers do what Egg says. Aerion finally notices Egg and asks him “What happened to your hair?” Egg merely replies “I cut it off brother. I didn’t want to look like you.”

[mid-roll]

Dunk is obviously thrown into a prison cell since he did attack a prince and he’s lower ranking than said prince. Egg arrives with some food and explains his back story. It’s pretty obvious to Dunk and readers by this point that Egg is the missing Aegon Targaryen that Maekar had been looking for. The short version of the story is that Egg was supposed to be his brother Daeron’s squire. Unlike many of the men in their family, Daeron has zero interest in being a knight.

Unfortunately Maekar is a total warrior type and refuses to accept the idea that any son of his would refuse to be a knight. Particularly his eldest son, which Daeron is. Egg and Daeron were also supposed to go to the tourney with the rest of the party. However Daeron decided to run away and snuck out to go drink. Egg got dragged along even though Egg wanted to go to the tourney. That’s why Egg was eager to tag along with a complete stranger just because he’s a knight heading to Ashford.

Daeron being the totally responsible 18-year-old that he is gets caught eventually. He tells his dad that they got lost and Egg is missing because he was kidnapped by a random knight turned bandit. Yup. He’s totally a responsible older brother. He totally didn’t get so drunk he lost his 9-year-old brother. And then the fight with Aerion happened, and we know the rest.

Egg isn’t there just to give Dunk some food. He’s there because he was summoned to speak with Baelor. Baelor is pretty much known as the golden child in this family. He’s a very intelligent man and he knows what type of people are in his family. He’s inclined to believe Dunk is innocent of the accusations pressed against him aside from beating up Aerion. It’s not like Dunk can deny that he did that, but Baelor believes Dunk is innocent of kidnapping.

As I said he knows what the people in his family are like. He knows Daeron is a drunk and a womanizer who hates fighting. Egg is an overeager kid who’s impulsive. Aerion is a violent bully who acts like a good little boy only when his dad is watching. On top of that, Baelor literally just spoke with Dunk the other day. It’s pretty obvious that Dunk is almost naively earnest and not the kind of person who’d kidnap an apparently random kid. He’s there to advise Dunk that he’s likely going to get maimed. Probably a hand and foot will be cut off for the kicking and punching he did. That’s the lighter sentence he’d get. So his only chance to get out of this is trial by combat.

The scene jumps to Aerion declaring that they’ll do a Trial by seven. If you didn’t listen to season 2 of the podcast I explained what this was in episode 2.03 about Aenys and Maegor Targaryen. Maegor had participated in a trial by seven. It’s basically like a trial by combat which everyone should already be familiar with from Game of Thrones. The only difference is instead of a 1 on 1 fight, it’s 7 on 7. The trial only ends with either the accuser withdrawing the accusations or the primary opponents dying. The others getting injured, surrendering, or dying don’t really matter as much. It’s about the accuser and the accused.

You can tell that Aerion selects this option for two reasons. One, Aerion knows he’ll never be able to beat Dunk in a fight. Dunk seriously beat up Aerion without much trouble since he’s so much bigger and stronger. Aerion also can’t select a champion to fight for him because he’ll look weak since he’s one of the main accusers. Also he knows Dunk is a young common hedge knight who likely doesn’t have many friends who’d back him. Aerion is a prince with family members, the kingsguard and nobles who’d likely side with him anyway. What is Dunk to do now?

Dunk winds up running into Raymun Fossoway. He explains about the Trial by seven. Steffon Fossoway offers to support Dunk and help him find 5 other men to join Dunk’s team. Raymun is skeptical because he knows his cousin only has loose acquaintances with other nobles from their time in the tourney circuit. Also he knows his cousin is a glory hound, which makes his eagerness raise some red flags.

Egg and Daeron find Dunk. Daeron apologizes for his cowardice in front of his scary, angry dad. He knows he was a coward for lying and losing track of his little brother. Daeron offers to throw the fight and withdraw his accusation to make it slightly easier for Dunk during trial. They also warn him that Maekar is fighting along with three kingsguard. They don’t state who the 7th member of their team is.

Aside from being a violent bully, Aerion is also crazy. Egg reveals that Aerion threated to castrate Egg before. This tells you everything you need to know about Aerion Brightflame if him assaulting Tanselle didn’t already. Daeron also said that when they first met at the inn, he had a dream where he saw Dunk being crushed below a dead dragon. It’s not clear in the dream if Dunk killed the dragon, but it freaked Daeron out. That’s why he acted unfriendly at the inn. It’s quite possible Daeron inherited dragon dreams, which I’ll discuss later in this episode.

Dunk is pretty stressed about this situation understandably. He goes to find Tanselle and saw she and her family have fled. Steely Pate calls to Dunk and explained that they made the smart decision to run away before the Targaryens remember them. Before they fled, Tanselle left behind the shield she painted for Dunk with Pate. At this point everyone at the tourney and around Ashford know the story. Pate shows his kinder side by helping Dunk dress in his new armor with Egg.

They get to the field where the Trial will happen. There’s a lot of spectators. Dunk assumes people are eager to watch him die. He’s surprised to see a number of the people are commoners who call out blessings to him. Pate explains Dunk demonstrated true knighthood by keeping the vows. Dunk protected a woman and the innocent unlike other so-called knights.

The next surprise is he arrives at the section designated for him. He sees there’s actually 4 men waiting for him along with Raymun. They are Ser Lyonel Baratheon, Ser Robyn Rhysling, Ser Humfrey Hardyng, and Ser Humfrey Beesley. I didn’t explain this earlier who some of these men are, but they were all high ranking contenders during the joust. These men agreed to side with Dunk for different reasons that don’t have anything to do with Dunk really.

Ser Humfrey Hardyng was the one who had his leg broken badly jousting with Aerion like I mentioned earlier. So his motivation is obviously revenge against the prince. The other Ser Humfrey is actually his brother-in-law, so he probably wanted to support Hardyng. Rhysling’s reason isn’t explained, but he’s apparently a grizzled veteran and Egg was the one who recruited him. It’s not stated how he was convinced. Lyonel Baratheon was also recruited by Egg. Egg did this by being cheeky dumping wine on him in anger. Lyonel ultimately agreed because it’s been literally decades since a Trial by Seven happened. Lyonel wants to be remembered in history for participating in something like that.

Just when things were looking up for Dunk, Steffon Fossoway shows up and says he’s siding with the Targaryens. He tries to gaslight them into thinking he never actually promised to back up Dunk when he totally did. So Raymun was pretty correct about being suspicious of his cousin. Steffon implies he was promised a lordship for switching sides. Raymun asks to be knighted so he can join and help Dunk. Dunk is reluctant to knight his new friend. Luckily a messenger shows up saying that Lord Ashford is summoning Dunk, which gives him an out. Lyonel offers to knight Raymun while Dunk goes to speak to Lord Ashford.

Basically Ashford wanted to check if Dunk has his companions for the Trial. Dunk says he’s still missing one and Ashford warns him if he can’t find the 7th man, he’s considered guilty by default. Dunk does a pretty impressive speech seeking help among the spectators, which includes lords and knights. No one is willing to join in a cause they don’t believe in. Just as he’s starting to lose hope, a rider in Targaryen armor appears. It looks like Prince Valarr, but it’s actually Prince Baelor.

Maekar is shocked and complains about his brother siding with Dunk. Baelor makes it clear he believes that Dunk was in the right and if they insist on accusing him, then they will let the gods decide. The two teams get ready to begin the fight. It’s set up similar to how jousts are done in tourneys. They start with charging at each other with lances and if needed, they’ll do a melee if they’re knocked of their horses. Baelor tells the others to leave the Kingsguard to him. They can’t attack him since they’re obligated to protect the royal family. Raymun fights with a sigil using a green apple instead of the normal red to tell him apart from Steffon. It’s a reference to him being called an unripe apple by his cousin.

Considering this episode is already getting long, I’ll just highlight a few things about the Trial. It’s pretty exciting if you read it in the novella. Or perhaps you’ll wait for episode 5 to air. This Trial by seven is exactly the thing George was referring to in the NYCC panel I mentioned in the previous episode. The two Humfreys ultimately die. Beesley dies during the initial charge while Hardyng succumbs to his injuries later. Raymun, Ser Robyn and Lyonel do really well in the Trial with just some injuries, but are okay. Dunk spends a chunk of the fight directly against Aerion. Ultimately Dunk’s size and strength in hand to hand street fighting forced Aerion to yield. Aerion withdraws his accusation or else he’ll get beaten up really badly yet again. Dunk is pretty injured too, but survives. However something rather shocking happens.

Dunk wakes up in his tent and he sees Baelor enter the tent sounding a bit off. When they take off his helmet he clearly has a serious head wound and collapses. He’s dead. And this is a disaster for the Targaryens and the realm at large. Baelor is cremated in Targaryen tradition. Valarr is bitter about his father dying and asks why his father had to die instead of Dunk.

Maekar later speaks with Dunk and explains what happened while Dunk was recovering. Aerion is basically exiled to Lys for the next few years for the mess he caused with his behavior. Yet another son shaming him and their family. Maekar also has feelings of guilt. Towards the end of the Trial, Maekar was fighting with Baelor and Lyonel so it’s pretty obvious that Maekar was the one who injured Baelor. Maekar wonders if he’ll be considered a kinslayer for what happened. Dunk himself is reflecting how absurd it is that 3 noblemen, including a man who could have been king, died for a commoner like him. “Could a simple hedge knight be so much more than a noble?”

Maekar then explains that Egg insists on being Dunk’s squire, but he’s too low ranking to take a literal prince as a squire. That’s why Maekar offers him a position as a knight of Summerhall, which would make him the right status. This is the dream of every hedge knight, but of course Dunk doesn’t feel worthy of it. Dunk says he will only agree to take Egg on as a squire if he remains a hedge knight for at least a few more years. Maekar is understandably shocked about this because why would he want his 9 year old son sleeping in the dirt and wandering place to place like a commoner.

Dunk argues that maybe part of the problem with Aerion and Daeron is exactly because they’ve lived as princes their whole lives. They don’t know hardship and they know nothing about how “the other half” live. This is why Aerion readily bullies anyone lower status than him for no reason. This is why Daeron is lazy and irresponsible. Maybe Egg can be a better person by doing more than just learning how to be a knight. Maybe he can be a kinder, responsible person when he realizes his actions as a prince has real consequences for people other than himself. Maekar promptly leaves after this conversation without saying anything else.

The next morning, Egg arrives to find Dunk ready for their journey. They decide to head off to Dorne and see if they can find a good puppet show to watch.

[mid-roll]Greetings fellow acolytes. Welcome to another episode of The Westerosi Primer. My name is Liz. If you’re new to this podcast, welcome! I hope you enjoy this journey of all things Westeros. And in this episode, I’ll be talking about The Tales of Dunk and Egg. In this case it is the first of the three released stories titled The Hedge Knight.

Before I get started with this episode, I need to state the obvious just in case. I want to emphasize that the upcoming spin-off series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, is based on this novella and any future seasons will be based on the other two novellas George had published. That means episodes 2 to 4 of this podcast season will likely spoil the events of the TV series. If you’d prefer not to be spoiled you can feel free to check out these episodes at a later date. If you want to read the story first before listening the rest of the episode, you’re more than welcome. We can be like a book club! I also want to make a note that the events of this episode were briefly discussed in episode 2.15 during the reign of Daeron II. If you haven’t checked out that episode, feel free to do so! As I indicated in that episode, this story that I’m talking about takes place in the year AC 209. With that said, let’s continue.

Just as a quick background on this particular series of stories. These were stories written for fantasy anthologies over the course of many years. In fact this story I’m discussing in this episode was released in 1998 as part of an anthology titled “Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy.” Next episode I’ll be talking about “The Sworn Sword,” which was published in 2013 as a part of “Legends II: New Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy.” And the third story, which I’ll talk about in episode 4 is “The Mystery Knight.” That story was part of the anthology “Warriors” in 2010. “Warriors” was co-edited by George R.R. Martin. Just so you know I’ll be repeating some of this info again in the next two episodes just in case new listeners check out this podcast for the first time.

Now that you know a bit about the publishing history of the novellas, let’s get into the basic plot. The second half of the episode I’ll be talking about some of the context of the story’s events and some thoughts I had about the story. The episode will end with a couple of housekeeping items to note.

The novella starts with a man we only know as Dunk. He’s burying a man in a modest grave. We find out the man Dunk is burying was a wandering knight named Ser Arlan of Pennytree. It’s not explicitly stated, but we can assume that Dunk was his squire. We can also infer from the narration and inner monologue, Dunk was still a squire and never knighted by Ser Arlan. It makes some sense because if Dunk had been knighted, there’s no guarantee that Dunk would have still been following Arlan around instead of going independent as a wandering knight himself.

After burying Ser Arlan, Dunk takes a quick inventory of Arlan’s possessions. Dunk decides to go about calling himself a knight even though technically he’s not a knight. This is a big deal, which I’ll get to in the second half of the episode. Dunk and Arlan had been on their way to the Tourney at Ashford when the old knight dies. Dunk decides to continue on the journey. His best chance at earning money and proving himself is to compete and be seen.

On the way he stops by an inn. He stumbles upon a drunk young man who mumbles about how Dunk needs to stay away from him. He also runs into a young boy shaved bald who he orders to take care of his horses. The kid is pretty sassy for a lack of a better description. The kid ultimately does what Dunk says and begs him to take him to the tourney. Dunk refuses and heads off the next day.

Dunk arrives at the tourney venue. He sees a puppet show and has a crush on the young puppeteer. She’s a Dornish girl named Tanselle who is working for her uncle who runs the traveling theater. But we don’t learn her name until a little bit later, but I’m giving you her name now to make it easier to keep track of her. Dunk then finds someone he definitely needs, an armorer. His name is Steely Pate and Dunk needs much better armor than what he scavenged from Ser Arlan’s possessions. Dunk needs to figure out how to get more money since new equipment isn’t cheap.

While he tries to figure this out, he runs into that bald kid who is begging again to be his squire. Dunk accepts the kid since he does need some help. The kid calls himself “Egg” which strangely fits given his bald head makes him look like an egg. Dunk introduces himself as Dunk, which leads to Egg asking if it’s short for Duncan. Dunk rolls with it and calls himself Duncan the Tall. He has no surname since he’s probably a street orphan back in King’s Landing. Incidentally he’s really tall like he’s described as being almost 7 feet tall.

Next morning, Dunk tries to register to fight, but has a hard time because he’s a no name hedge knight. He can’t find anyone to prove he’s a knight and the only other possible witness is Ser Arlan, who is dead. Dunk has three horses with him and he needs to sell one of them. Arlan used to ride Sweetfoot and saved Thunder for tourneys since he was a war horse. Chestnut is the horse that Dunk normally rode on. Ultimately it’s Sweetfoot who will be sold off since Dunk doesn’t need three horses nor does he have money to look after that many.

While he’s waiting to speak to the stable master for the sale, he sees a grand procession entering the grounds of Ashford Meadow. He sees members of House Targaryen have arrived including 3 of the Kingsguard. There are some Targaryens planning to compete. Some of them do have a reputation of being excellent knights, which makes the competition tough. Dunk gets mistaken for a stable hand by one of the members of the Targaryen party, who we will later find out is Aerion. Dunk uses process of elimination to figure out which of the many princes are attending the tourney.

Dunk sees the puppet theater and wanders around the tourney grounds. He observes the final preparations of the big tourney while people continue to arrive. Dunk finds a couple of young men training. The sigil is a red apple and he identifies them as members of House Fossoway. The older man snarks that his companion is an “apple that’s not ripe yet.” The older man is a knight named Ser Steffon Fossoway. The younger man he’s fighting with is his cousin Raymun, who is his squire. They have a brief conversation and Raymun seems to like Dunk well enough to matter later in this story. Dunk heads off to find Steely Pate to give him the rest of the money owed to get a proper set of new armor.

Dunk gets back to the small campsite he set up for himself. He had left Egg behind to protect and tend to the camp. He shows off his new gear to his sort of squire. In their conversation, Egg asks if he needs to go to the castle or not. It’s a rather odd question considering most street kids would want to see a castle if they’ve never been inside one before.

Presumably the next day, Dunk manages to find a knight, who is from a noble house. Dunk is hoping this guy would be willing to vouch for him. Of course that fails. Dunk is a pretty naïve guy despite his experience traveling around. Lords typically will have hundreds of knights serving him. This is especially true if they’re a really major lord. Even if they remember their knights, they’d only remember the best ones serving under them who are sworn to him as a household knight. Ser Arlan is a hedge knight and lords couldn’t be bothered to remember them. They’re not all that different from mercenaries or swords for hire.

Dunk tries to speak to Ashford’s Steward about allowing him to enter the lists and stumbles into a meeting between the Princes and Lord Ashford. We only get part of the conversation, but we see that one prince is concerned about his sons and complains the other person he’s talking to doesn’t care because they’re not his sons. Another man replies that “Daeron has done this before.” He also says that Daeron had no business being in a tourney any more than Aerys or Rhaegel. It seems from inference that the first man has two sons missing: Daeron and Aegon. The first man, who is the father of the missing sons, wants Daeron to compete to prove himself and thinks that because Daeron is 18, there’s still a chance for him to improve. Or else.

The second man points out that Aerion is still there and going to compete, so we can assume Aerion is another son of the first man. Now if you have listened to episode 2.15, you likely figured out that “first man” was Maekar and the second was Baelor. Both men are the sons of King Daeron II. Baelor is also known as Baelor Breakspear for his exploits in tourneys. He’s also currently the prince of Dragonstone aka the next king. Maekar is the youngest of 4 brothers so unlikely to become king. And as we now realize in the story he’s got at least 3 sons we’ve met.

Eventually, the two Targaryen brothers finally notice that Dunk is there and Maekar being his delightfully hot headed self basically asks our protagonist what the hell he is doing there. Dunk tries to explain his story yet again. Ashford explains he heard about it and argues there’s no proof and Dunk could have easily just stolen Arlan’s stuff. Interestingly Baelor interrupts and says does oddly enough remember Ser Arlan. They had actually jousted each other 9 years ago and the prince remembered!

Maekar wonders why in the world would his brother bother to joust a random hedge knight or even remember the guy. Baelor explains that the brackets basically paired him with Arlan. He remembered the guy because he makes it a policy to learn about his opponents. Ultimately Baelor convinces them to allow Dunk to joust since he sees no particular reason to deny him. So Dunk is officially in! Though it’s pointed out since he’s not related to Arlan, he can’t use the same sigil. So off Dunk goes to get a new shield!

He heads out and sees Egg watching the Dornish folk’s puppet show. They complement Tanselle for the quality of the puppets and the performances. Dunk asks Tanselle if she can paint a new original sigil for his shield: an elm tree with a shooting star above. The story then skips to the first day of the tourney. The tourney is hosted by Lord Ashford for his daughter who is turning 13 years old. The birthday girl is naturally the queen of love and beauty. The jousting portion starts off with 5 knights acting as her champions. The goal is that the other jousters are challenging the champions and by the end of the jousting event the five knights left in the place of honor can decide whether the birthday girl is still the queen or not.

We get into a series of exciting jousting matches, which I’m not going to describe here. You’ll have to read the story yourself if you want that. I will say the events dramatically end with a bout involving Prince Aerion appearing as a challenger. It’s pretty dramatic because Aerion intentionally targets his lance at his opponent’s horse. Ultimately the horse is severely injured and winds up crashing on his rider. Ser Humfrey Hardyng’s leg is severely broken and the event ends. Ultimately Lord Ashford declared Humfrey the winner probably because of non-sportsman behavior.

Later in the evening, Egg and Dunk run into Raymun Fossoway. Naturally they have a “I can’t believe what happened today” type of conversation about the tourney. Raymun invited Dunk to go have a drink and hang out basically. Dunk wanted to go look for Tanselle to get his shield, but Egg offers to go get it for him. Not unreasonable for a squire to do a simple errand for the knight he’s serving. Raymun and Dunk head off and continue talking.

At the VIP box there was an empty chair. It seemed that Prince Maekar wasn’t there likely trying to find out where his two missing sons are. With his brother not there, Baelor had to be the one to handle the mess that Aerion created with his dirty trick. It’s a pretty open secret that Maekar’s missing son Daeron is more interested in drinking and skirt chasing than he is in being a knight. Raymun jokes the prince was probably off drinking somewhere instead of being at the tourney. Hm… well gee this sounds oddly familiar.

Suddenly Egg runs to them shouting for Dunk. He only shouts “he’s hurting her!” Dunk is understandably confused with what’s going on. Egg replies that it’s Tanselle. Dunk needs to hurry because Aerion is the one hurting the poor girl. Dunk goes off to help. When they get to the puppet theater, they see a bunch of guys smashing things and wrecking stuff. Prince Aerion is twisting Tanselle’s arms as she begs for mercy. He proceeds to break one of her fingers.

This understandably has Dunk seeing red and he proceeds to literally throw some of the soldiers out of the way before punching Aerion in the face. Aerion notes that Dunk looks familiar and Dunk reminds him that Aerion thought he was a stable boy before. Aerion asks Dunk why would he bother with some useless girl and lose his life for assaulting a prince. Aerion decides to have Dunk killed.

Egg shouts for them to stop which Dunk thinks is stupid and tries to stop Egg. Egg makes it clear that they’ll obey him and actually the soldiers do what Egg says. Aerion finally notices Egg and asks him “What happened to your hair?” Egg merely replies “I cut it off brother. I didn’t want to look like you.”

Dunk is obviously thrown into a prison cell since he did attack a prince and he’s lower ranking than said prince. Egg arrives with some food and explains his back story. It’s pretty obvious to Dunk and readers by this point that Egg is the missing Aegon Targaryen that Maekar had been looking for. The short version of the story is that Egg was supposed to be his brother Daeron’s squire. Unlike many of the men in their family, Daeron has zero interest in being a knight.

Unfortunately Maekar is a total warrior type and refuses to accept the idea that any son of his would refuse to be a knight. Particularly his eldest son, which Daeron is. Egg and Daeron were also supposed to go to the tourney with the rest of the party. However Daeron decided to run away and snuck out to go drink. Egg got dragged along even though Egg wanted to go to the tourney. That’s why Egg was eager to tag along with a complete stranger just because he’s a knight heading to Ashford.

Daeron being the totally responsible 18-year-old that he is gets caught eventually. He tells his dad that they got lost and Egg is missing because he was kidnapped by a random knight turned bandit. Yup. He’s totally a responsible older brother. He totally didn’t get so drunk he lost his 9-year-old brother. And then the fight with Aerion happened, and we know the rest.

Egg isn’t there just to give Dunk some food. He’s there because he was summoned to speak with Baelor. Baelor is pretty much known as the golden child in this family. He’s a very intelligent man and he knows what type of people are in his family. He’s inclined to believe Dunk is innocent of the accusations pressed against him aside from beating up Aerion. It’s not like Dunk can deny that he did that, but Baelor believes Dunk is innocent of kidnapping.

As I said he knows what the people in his family are like. He knows Daeron is a drunk and a womanizer who hates fighting. Egg is an overeager kid who’s impulsive. Aerion is a violent bully who acts like a good little boy only when his dad is watching. On top of that, Baelor literally just spoke with Dunk the other day. It’s pretty obvious that Dunk is almost naively earnest and not the kind of person who’d kidnap an apparently random kid. He’s there to advise Dunk that he’s likely going to get maimed. Probably a hand and foot will be cut off for the kicking and punching he did. That’s the lighter sentence he’d get. So his only chance to get out of this is trial by combat.

The scene jumps to Aerion declaring that they’ll do a Trial by seven. If you didn’t listen to season 2 of the podcast I explained what this was in episode 2.03 about Aenys and Maegor Targaryen. Maegor had participated in a trial by seven. It’s basically like a trial by combat which everyone should already be familiar with from Game of Thrones. The only difference is instead of a 1 on 1 fight, it’s 7 on 7. The trial only ends with either the accuser withdrawing the accusations or the primary opponents dying. The others getting injured, surrendering, or dying don’t really matter as much. It’s about the accuser and the accused.

You can tell that Aerion selects this option for two reasons. One, Aerion knows he’ll never be able to beat Dunk in a fight. Dunk seriously beat up Aerion without much trouble since he’s so much bigger and stronger. Aerion also can’t select a champion to fight for him because he’ll look weak since he’s one of the main accusers. Also he knows Dunk is a young common hedge knight who likely doesn’t have many friends who’d back him. Aerion is a prince with family members, the kingsguard and nobles who’d likely side with him anyway. What is Dunk to do now?

Dunk winds up running into Raymun Fossoway. He explains about the Trial by seven. Steffon Fossoway offers to support Dunk and help him find 5 other men to join Dunk’s team. Raymun is skeptical because he knows his cousin only has loose acquaintances with other nobles from their time in the tourney circuit. Also he knows his cousin is a glory hound, which makes his eagerness raise some red flags.

Egg and Daeron find Dunk. Daeron apologizes for his cowardice in front of his scary, angry dad. He knows he was a coward for lying and losing track of his little brother. Daeron offers to throw the fight and withdraw his accusation to make it slightly easier for Dunk during trial. They also warn him that Maekar is fighting along with three kingsguard. They don’t state who the 7th member of their team is.

Aside from being a violent bully, Aerion is also crazy. Egg reveals that Aerion threated to castrate Egg before. This tells you everything you need to know about Aerion Brightflame if him assaulting Tanselle didn’t already. Daeron also said that when they first met at the inn, he had a dream where he saw Dunk being crushed below a dead dragon. It’s not clear in the dream if Dunk killed the dragon, but it freaked Daeron out. That’s why he acted unfriendly at the inn. It’s quite possible Daeron inherited dragon dreams, which I’ll discuss later in this episode.

Dunk is pretty stressed about this situation understandably. He goes to find Tanselle and saw she and her family have fled. Steely Pate calls to Dunk and explained that they made the smart decision to run away before the Targaryens remember them. Before they fled, Tanselle left behind the shield she painted for Dunk with Pate. At this point everyone at the tourney and around Ashford know the story. Pate shows his kinder side by helping Dunk dress in his new armor with Egg.

They get to the field where the Trial will happen. There’s a lot of spectators. Dunk assumes people are eager to watch him die. He’s surprised to see a number of the people are commoners who call out blessings to him. Pate explains Dunk demonstrated true knighthood by keeping the vows. Dunk protected a woman and the innocent unlike other so-called knights.

The next surprise is he arrives at the section designated for him. He sees there’s actually 4 men waiting for him along with Raymun. They are Ser Lyonel Baratheon, Ser Robyn Rhysling, Ser Humfrey Hardyng, and Ser Humfrey Beesley. I didn’t explain this earlier who some of these men are, but they were all high ranking contenders during the joust. These men agreed to side with Dunk for different reasons that don’t have anything to do with Dunk really.

Ser Humfrey Hardyng was the one who had his leg broken badly jousting with Aerion like I mentioned earlier. So his motivation is obviously revenge against the prince. The other Ser Humfrey is actually his brother-in-law, so he probably wanted to support Hardyng. Rhysling’s reason isn’t explained, but he’s apparently a grizzled veteran and Egg was the one who recruited him. It’s not stated how he was convinced. Lyonel Baratheon was also recruited by Egg. Egg did this by being cheeky dumping wine on him in anger. Lyonel ultimately agreed because it’s been literally decades since a Trial by Seven happened. Lyonel wants to be remembered in history for participating in something like that.

Just when things were looking up for Dunk, Steffon Fossoway shows up and says he’s siding with the Targaryens. He tries to gaslight them into thinking he never actually promised to back up Dunk when he totally did. So Raymun was pretty correct about being suspicious of his cousin. Steffon implies he was promised a lordship for switching sides. Raymun asks to be knighted so he can join and help Dunk. Dunk is reluctant to knight his new friend. Luckily a messenger shows up saying that Lord Ashford is summoning Dunk, which gives him an out. Lyonel offers to knight Raymun while Dunk goes to speak to Lord Ashford.

Basically Ashford wanted to check if Dunk has his companions for the Trial. Dunk says he’s still missing one and Ashford warns him if he can’t find the 7th man, he’s considered guilty by default. Dunk does a pretty impressive speech seeking help among the spectators, which includes lords and knights. No one is willing to join in a cause they don’t believe in. Just as he’s starting to lose hope, a rider in Targaryen armor appears. It looks like Prince Valarr, but it’s actually Prince Baelor.

Maekar is shocked and complains about his brother siding with Dunk. Baelor makes it clear he believes that Dunk was in the right and if they insist on accusing him, then they will let the gods decide. The two teams get ready to begin the fight. It’s set up similar to how jousts are done in tourneys. They start with charging at each other with lances and if needed, they’ll do a melee if they’re knocked of their horses. Baelor tells the others to leave the Kingsguard to him. They can’t attack him since they’re obligated to protect the royal family. Raymun fights with a sigil using a green apple instead of the normal red to tell him apart from Steffon. It’s a reference to him being called an unripe apple by his cousin.

Considering this episode is already getting long, I’ll just highlight a few things about the Trial. It’s pretty exciting if you read it in the novella. Or perhaps you’ll wait for episode 5 to air. This Trial by seven is exactly the thing George was referring to in the NYCC panel I mentioned in the previous episode. The two Humfreys ultimately die. Beesley dies during the initial charge while Hardyng succumbs to his injuries later. Raymun, Ser Robyn and Lyonel do really well in the Trial with just some injuries, but are okay. Dunk spends a chunk of the fight directly against Aerion. Ultimately Dunk’s size and strength in hand to hand street fighting forced Aerion to yield. Aerion withdraws his accusation or else he’ll get beaten up really badly yet again. Dunk is pretty injured too, but survives. However something rather shocking happens.

Dunk wakes up in his tent and he sees Baelor enter the tent sounding a bit off. When they take off his helmet he clearly has a serious head wound and collapses. He’s dead. And this is a disaster for the Targaryens and the realm at large. Baelor is cremated in Targaryen tradition. Valarr is bitter about his father dying and asks why his father had to die instead of Dunk.

Maekar later speaks with Dunk and explains what happened while Dunk was recovering. Aerion is basically exiled to Lys for the next few years for the mess he caused with his behavior. Yet another son shaming him and their family. Maekar also has feelings of guilt. Towards the end of the Trial, Maekar was fighting with Baelor and Lyonel so it’s pretty obvious that Maekar was the one who injured Baelor. Maekar wonders if he’ll be considered a kinslayer for what happened. Dunk himself is reflecting how absurd it is that 3 noblemen, including a man who could have been king, died for a commoner like him. “Could a simple hedge knight be so much more than a noble?”

Maekar then explains that Egg insists on being Dunk’s squire, but he’s too low ranking to take a literal prince as a squire. That’s why Maekar offers him a position as a knight of Summerhall, which would make him the right status. This is the dream of every hedge knight, but of course Dunk doesn’t feel worthy of it. Dunk says he will only agree to take Egg on as a squire if he remains a hedge knight for at least a few more years. Maekar is understandably shocked about this because why would he want his 9 year old son sleeping in the dirt and wandering place to place like a commoner.

Dunk argues that maybe part of the problem with Aerion and Daeron is exactly because they’ve lived as princes their whole lives. They don’t know hardship and they know nothing about how “the other half” live. This is why Aerion readily bullies anyone lower status than him for no reason. This is why Daeron is lazy and irresponsible. Maybe Egg can be a better person by doing more than just learning how to be a knight. Maybe he can be a kinder, responsible person when he realizes his actions as a prince has real consequences for people other than himself. Maekar promptly leaves after this conversation without saying anything else.

The next morning, Egg arrives to find Dunk ready for their journey. They decide to head off to Dorne and see if they can find a good puppet show to watch.

Well now that I’ve covered the overall plot of this novella, let’s get into some further explanation of some things in the lore and my thoughts on the story. How does one become a knight? If you watched Season 8 of Game of Thrones, in episode 2 Jaime knights Brienne. The most basic rule is that a knight is capable of doing the dubbing ceremony. The vows include codes of conduct that is representative of each of the new gods. It’s been stated a few times in the lore that traditionally, people who are candidates for knighthood are also expected to perform a sleepless vigil in a sept the night before the ceremony.

Another notable thing is that traditionally knighthood is connected to the Faith of the Seven, which is why there are a lot of references to the new gods. Also it’s why a majority of knights mentioned in the stories aren’t Northerners. A lot of Northerners are worshippers of the old gods. They also have the attitude that knighthoods are southern, Andal ideas that are excessive and not really indicative of your abilities as a warrior. It should be said that there is some truth to this as not all knights are particularly great warriors. We also know for a fact that not all knights are actually honorable or keep to their vows. The Mountain is a pretty good example of this.

Aside from explaining some interesting lore, why do I bring this up? Knighthood has a lot of meaning and a lot of ceremony to it. It’s notable that nowhere do we get any confirmation that Dunk actually is a knight. He calls himself a knight. He tells people that Arlan did the ceremony before he died. But is that true? My opinion says no. If you read the novella and read between the lines, you get plenty of clues he’s lying about being a knight.

Before the Trial by seven, Raymun Fossoway was still a squire and wanted to join the trial to defend his new friend Dunk. If Dunk was a knight, he’d have no issue with doing the dubbing ceremony even if he might be reluctant to drag Raymun into his mess. However it’s more likely Dunk’s reluctance is because he knows he’s not really a knight and there’s a chance Raymun’s knighthood wouldn’t be legit based on how the rules work. You might be thinking, what’s the big deal? It’s a big deal because as I indicated earlier during the synopsis, Dunk’s status as a knight is questioned a few times in the story. He’s newly knighted and no one really remembers seeing him or meeting him in the various tourneys. There’s no hard proof he was knighted which would prevent him from participating in tourneys and other privileges knights get.

Dunk says that Arlan had told him that with a man like Baelor as Prince of Dragonstone, Westeros would be in safe hands when he’s king. We definitely got hints of that in this story. It is unfortunate that he dies. Though as I pointed out in episode 2.15 and a little bit in episode 2.16 that both of Baelor’s sons died from an epidemic that spreads in Westeros, which also killed Daeron II. This is something that gets mentioned in the next novella as well. Even if Baelor didn’t die, there’s a possibility he would have died during the Great Spring Sickness as it was called.

I had earlier mentioned dragon dreams. It’s basically a form of precognition via dreams. Stories claim that the reason why the Targaryens lived on Dragonstone was because an ancestor named Daenys Targaryen had such dreams warning her of the Doom of Valyria. She convinced her father to move them elsewhere and then the Doom happened. The Targaryens were the only surviving dragonlords. In the House of the Dragon, they indicate that Helaena has dragon dreams. That’s a show specific idea. Helaena is more of a silent background character in Fire & Blood. We don’t know much about her other than she’s a kind person who gets victimized a lot. It’s implied Daeron inherited this ability. It’s quite possible that the dream Daeron had might have referred to the death of his uncle Baelor.

Before I end this episode, I want to remind everyone that there is the super important survey that I really need you guys to fill out. And that is what should I talk about in the next season of this podcast. I’ll apologize for creating confusion because I inadvertently made the survey invite only. I have corrected the settings and the survey should be available for anyone to access. If not, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail.

I would put next in quotations mostly because Seasons 4 & 5 are up in the air. One season will be just me reacting to Season 3 of House of the Dragon and the other will be the result of this survey. This is your opportunity to have your say. I’d advise you to fill out the survey as soon as possible so you can get your opinion to me. Your literal vote could affect what I do. I know for a fact there are people listening to this because the last episode got almost 100 downloads in the first 24 hours it was released. If all of those people participate in the survey, we’d get some interesting results. In fact just the other day, I got the first response. Someone voted for me to explain theories that book readers know, but tv only fans don’t. Agree with that choice? Disagree? Let me know!

One cool new feature on the website is you can leave comments for this episode and all of my past episodes. If you have an opinion, you can leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail. Head over to thewesterosiprimer.com or you can send an e-mail to host@thewesterosiprimer.com

And that just about covers the first novella in the Tales of Dunk and Egg. If you’re interested in finding out more for yourself, feel free to go to the full show notes where I will have links. Though be aware there will be spoilers to the novellas and the TV series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

Thank you for listening and tune in to the next episode where I’ll talk about the next novella, The Sworn Sword.

Well now that I’ve covered the overall plot of this novella, let’s get into some further explanation of some things in the lore and my thoughts on the story. How does one become a knight? If you watched Season 8 of Game of Thrones, in episode 2 Jaime knights Brienne. The most basic rule is that a knight is capable of doing the dubbing ceremony. The vows include codes of conduct that is representative of each of the new gods. It’s been stated a few times in the lore that traditionally, people who are candidates for knighthood are also expected to perform a sleepless vigil in a sept the night before the ceremony.

Another notable thing is that traditionally knighthood is connected to the Faith of the Seven, which is why there are a lot of references to the new gods. Also it’s why a majority of knights mentioned in the stories aren’t Northerners. A lot of Northerners are worshippers of the old gods. They also have the attitude that knighthoods are southern, Andal ideas that are excessive and not really indicative of your abilities as a warrior. It should be said that there is some truth to this as not all knights are particularly great warriors. We also know for a fact that not all knights are actually honorable or keep to their vows. The Mountain is a pretty good example of this.

Aside from explaining some interesting lore, why do I bring this up? Knighthood has a lot of meaning and a lot of ceremony to it. It’s notable that nowhere do we get any confirmation that Dunk actually is a knight. He calls himself a knight. He tells people that Arlan did the ceremony before he died. But is that true? My opinion says no. If you read the novella and read between the lines, you get plenty of clues he’s lying about being a knight.

Before the Trial by seven, Raymun Fossoway was still a squire and wanted to join the trial to defend his new friend Dunk. If Dunk was a knight, he’d have no issue with doing the dubbing ceremony even if he might be reluctant to drag Raymun into his mess. However it’s more likely Dunk’s reluctance is because he knows he’s not really a knight and there’s a chance Raymun’s knighthood wouldn’t be legit based on how the rules work. You might be thinking, what’s the big deal? It’s a big deal because as I indicated earlier during the synopsis, Dunk’s status as a knight is questioned a few times in the story. He’s newly knighted and no one really remembers seeing him or meeting him in the various tourneys. There’s no hard proof he was knighted which would prevent him from participating in tourneys and other privileges knights get.

Dunk says that Arlan had told him that with a man like Baelor as Prince of Dragonstone, Westeros would be in safe hands when he’s king. We definitely got hints of that in this story. It is unfortunate that he dies. Though as I pointed out in episode 2.15 and a little bit in episode 2.16 that both of Baelor’s sons died from an epidemic that spreads in Westeros, which also killed Daeron II. This is something that gets mentioned in the next novella as well. Even if Baelor didn’t die, there’s a possibility he would have died during the Great Spring Sickness as it was called.

I had earlier mentioned dragon dreams. It’s basically a form of precognition via dreams. Stories claim that the reason why the Targaryens lived on Dragonstone was because an ancestor named Daenys Targaryen had such dreams warning her of the Doom of Valyria. She convinced her father to move them elsewhere and then the Doom happened. The Targaryens were the only surviving dragonlords. In the House of the Dragon, they indicate that Helaena has dragon dreams. That’s a show specific idea. Helaena is more of a silent background character in Fire & Blood. We don’t know much about her other than she’s a kind person who gets victimized a lot. It’s implied Daeron inherited this ability. It’s quite possible that the dream Daeron had might have referred to the death of his uncle Baelor.

Before I end this episode, I want to remind everyone that there is the super important survey that I really need you guys to fill out. And that is what should I talk about in the next season of this podcast. I’ll apologize for creating confusion because I inadvertently made the survey invite only. I have corrected the settings and the survey should be available for anyone to access. If not, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail.

I would put next in quotations mostly because Seasons 4 & 5 are up in the air. One season will be just me reacting to Season 3 of House of the Dragon and the other will be the result of this survey. This is your opportunity to have your say. I’d advise you to fill out the survey as soon as possible so you can get your opinion to me. Your literal vote could affect what I do. I know for a fact there are people listening to this because the last episode got almost 100 downloads in the first 24 hours it was released. If all of those people participate in the survey, we’d get some interesting results. In fact just the other day, I got the first response. Someone voted for me to explain theories that book readers know, but tv only fans don’t. Agree with that choice? Disagree? Let me know!

One cool new feature on the website is you can leave comments for this episode and all of my past episodes. If you have an opinion, you can leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail. Head over to thewesterosiprimer.com or you can send an e-mail to host@thewesterosiprimer.com

And that just about covers the first novella in the Tales of Dunk and Egg. If you’re interested in finding out more for yourself, feel free to go to the full show notes where I will have links. Though be aware there will be spoilers to the novellas and the TV series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

Thank you for listening and tune in to the next episode where I’ll talk about the next novella, The Sworn Sword.