A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms ending explained: Summerhall, 'Nine Kingdoms' and the big book change you missed
So, is it called A Knight of the Nine Kingdoms now?
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – or is that nine kingdoms? – is over… for now, but the ending has some big implications for the future of the show.
Six weeks ago, there were plenty of Game of Thrones fans who were barely familiar with Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg.
Now, they’re part of one of the most widely lauded shows in the whole franchise. Thankfully, the gods have been good: season 2 has been green-lit, and filming has already begun.
The finale has just aired. So if you want to catch yourself up on everything that happened at the end of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, you’re in the right place.
***Warning: spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms ahead***
How does A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms end?
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms ends with Dunk and Egg leaving Ashford Meadow together, with Egg officially serving as his squire.
The brisk 31-minute finale ties up loads of loose ends and drops a few teases for the future. For example, Lyonel asks Dunk to join him at Storm’s End, where he’d “love him like a brother”.
“There’s a war coming. We could be a force, you and I,” Lyonel tells him. If you want book spoilers, we’ll save them for the end!
Dunk also speaks to Valarr Targaryen, the son of Baelor, who asks him, “Why would the gods take him and leave you?” Dunk says he’s been thinking the same question, and Valarr dismisses him.
Later, Maekar summons Dunk and asks if he’ll take Egg as his squire – but only if he comes to Summerhall and swears his sword to Maekar. Dunk politely turns him down, saying he’s “done with princes”.
He finds Egg “spying” outside and apologises. “Maybe you’re not the knight I thought you were,” Egg says. In a later scene, after seeing blonde hair growing on his head, Egg carries a knife into Aerion’s room, but Maekar stops him before he does anything.
The Tales of Dunk and Egg begin
Near the end of the episode, Dunk has a change of heart.
He appeals to Maekar to let him take Egg “away from castles and servants” and on the road with him. Maekar doesn’t want him to live like a peasant, but Dunk reminds him of his other sons’ shortcomings.
“He’s my last son,” Maekar tells Dunk, wistfully.
Dunk gets ready to set off. Raymun appears with one of the horses Dunk sold, but upon hearing that Raymun plans to open a new cider brewery, he lets Raymun keep her.
Dunk removes Ser Arlan’s sigil from the pommel of his sword and leaves… but he’s halted by Egg. “My lord father says I am to serve you,” he says.
After a playful jibe about remembering to call him “ser”, they get on their way.
When Egg asks where they’re going, Dunk says they can go anywhere in the seven kingdoms. Egg tells him there are nine (more on this shortly) and leaves him mighty confused.
In the closing shot, Dunk and Egg ride on their horse next to Ser Arlan, who turns away into the field near an elm tree.
Wait, so is it called A Knight of the Nine Kingdoms now?
No, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms hasn’t changed its name to A Knight of the Nine Kingdoms. However, Egg does raise a compelling point about how many kingdoms there are in the realm.
Brief history lesson: the seven kingdoms were established by Aegon the Conqueror, uniting Westeros under the rule of the Iron Throne.
However, the realm is technically split into nine regions: Dorne, the crownlands, the Iron Islands, the north, the Realm, the riverlands, the stormlands, the Vale of Arryn, and the westerlands.
So, why is it called the seven kingdoms? During Aegon’s conquest, there were only seven kingdoms in Westeros. In short, those regions have since been subdivided, but the name stuck. Also, he didn’t actually conquer Dorne, either.
Where is Tanselle?
Tanselle had a tough run of it in the first season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. After Aerion caught her hosting a puppet show featuring a slain dragon, he wrecked her stall and broke her fingers.
In episode 4, Steely Pate told Dunk that she’d fled back to her homeland: Dorne.
Will we see her again? Yes… if actress Tanzyn Crawford gets her way. “I’ve grown to love the character of Tanselle and I would love to see her journey continue,” she told Decider.
“And I think the connection, although brief, that Duncan and her build, I think it’s worth more. So yeah, I’m excited to see what happens.”
Considering Egg tells Dunk about Dorne having good puppet shows, it seems like there’s a chance season 2 could reunite them.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms made a key change to the book’s ending
In George R.R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight, Maekar agrees that Dunk should remain a hedge knight and take Egg away to be his squire.
In the show, that doesn’t appear to be the case. While there’s clearly a part of him that agrees with Dunk (likely trying to embrace his late brother’s compassion and grace), he still sees Egg as the blood of the dragon.
When Egg reveals to Dunk that his dad told him to be his squire, there’s no reason to believe he’d be lying – especially since that’d line up with the source material.
However, a brief mid-credits scene shows Maekar angrily searching for Egg. He didn’t have his dad’s permission, after all!
Who was Aegon the Dragon?
In one of the finale’s most fraught, emotional scenes, Valarr tells Dunk that Baelor had the potential to be the best king since Aegon the Dragon.
Unless you’re clued up on your Westeros history, you’ve probably felt a bit confused about all the Aegons in House Targaryen.
Aegon the Dragon was the first Aegon, but he’s better known as Aegon the Conqueror.
Following the Century of Blood, a period of chaos in Essos sparked by the destruction of the Valyrian Freehold, he conquered the seven kingdoms.
HBO is developing Aegon’s conquest as a TV show (or possibly even a movie), so it may not be long before we meet him onscreen.
***Warning: massive book spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms ahead***
Why Summerhall is so important in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Summerhall is a castle used by House Targaryen in the stormlands. It was built during the reign of Daeron II, and in the books, it’s eventually passed to Maekar.
Dunk rejects Maekar’s offer to go to Summerhall in the finale, but if the show follows the books, they’ll both end up back there.
Let’s just say, Summerhall is mostly associated with tragedy; more specifically, a huge fire believed to have been caused by an attempt to hatch a dragon egg. However, there have been suggestions that this won’t play out exactly the way readers would expect.
What war is coming?
Lyonel tells Dunk there’s a war coming… so, what war is it?
If we’re going off the books, this will be the Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion – but it could be multiple seasons away.
There’s quite a bit of background with the Blackfyre Rebellions. Here’s the shortest version: Daemon Blackfyre was one of Aegon IV’s bastards, who the king legitimised before his death. He gave him Blackfyre, a Valyrian steel sword – and many saw it as a royal endorsement.
This is where all of the conflicts stem from, and Dunk plays a major role in the fourth war.
Read more: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was filmed in 4 classic Game of Thrones locations
