Don’t go jousting if you haven’t watched the third episode of “The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”, entitled “The Squire”. Spoilers ahead!
At the start of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” the new “Game of Thrones” spinoff and prequel, we meet Duncan, a squire and aspiring hedge knight played by Peter Claffey. After the death of his mentor, who was a “real” knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Duncan decides to try to make it on his own… and one fateful night, he meets a young boy known only as Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) who begs him to be his squire. Duncan is hesitant, mostly because the Hedge Knights are a sort of independent contract, but he eventually agrees.
But this little boy is not a simple squire. In the final moments of the series’ third episode, “The Squire”, we learn that The egg is actually Aegon Targaryenson of Prince Maekar Targaryen (Sam Spruell) and younger brother of Daeron and Aerion (played by Henry Ashton and Finn Bennett respectively). This only comes to light when Aerion publicly torments Duncan and the object of Duncan’s affections, puppeteer and artist Tanselle (Tanzyn Crawford), seemingly for fun, and Egg demands that he stop in his capacity as a royal.
This is probably just as shocking to Duncan as it is to the audience, unless you’ve already read George RR Martin’s series of novels, “Tales of Dunk and Egg,” and followed their adventures across Westeros. If you haven’t read that or “Fire & Blood,” Martin’s story about the Targaryen family that serves as the source for “House of the Dragon,” there are a few book spoilers aheadbut here’s everything you need to know about Egg (also known as Aegon).
Egg was named in Game of Thrones
Here’s the gist of how Egg’s life is going apart from his time as a squire to Duncan (in the interest of keeping the secrets of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” safe, we won’t spoil that specific news here). Although we only see two of Egg’s brothers in “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” – at least so far – he actually has three, including a brother named Aemon who joins the Night’s Watch. You may remember Aemon from “Game of Thrones”, where he works as Maester Aemon at the Night’s Watch headquarters at Castle Black, mentors Kit Harington’s Jon Snow and John Bradley’s Sam Tarly, and is played by the late Peter Vaughan. In “Game of Thrones”, as Aemon dies, his last words refer to his younger brother: “Egg? I dreamed I was old.”
Egg becomes king, and he earns an unflattering nickname along the way: Aegon the Unlikely, referring to the fact that he is his father’s fourth son and no one expected him to ascend the Iron Throne of Westeros. (In fact, his father Maekar was also a fourth son who defied all odds to become king.) By the time Maekar dies, Aerion and Daeron are dead and their heirs are too young to take the crown, so a council intervenes. Aemon having made a vow to “wear no crown” by joining the Night’s Watch, Aegon becomes Aegon V Targaryen, king of Westeros.
This name would ultimately be passed down to his great-grandson, who was the last in a long line of Aegon Targaryens and theoretically the rightful heir to the throne of Westeros. However, Egg’s great-grandson spent most of his life unaware that he was a Targaryen and was raised under a different name: Jon Snow.
Egg sets a different standard for Targaryens
Ultimately, Aegon’s reign over Westeros ends in tragedy, despite his best efforts to be a good ruler, and we get to see that first spark of kindness in Egg. (Also, I have to say that Dexter Sol Ansell is a amazing young performer who previously appeared in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Serpents” as a younger version of Tom Blyth’s antihero Coriolanus Snow, and he brings so much heart to the role of Egg that he is an absolute pleasure to watch.) Despite Duncan’s attempts to get rid of Egg by insisting that he has no need of a squire, the curious and bright young boy does not let himself discourage, and by “The Squire” it seems pretty clear that the two have formed a pretty unshakable connection.
There’s a small problem here, which is that Egg, as a royal, isn’t exactly supposed to be a squire for a lowborn knight who doesn’t even serve a particular house. It’s easy to assume that, before long, Egg’s father, Prince Maekar, might step in and insist that his son stop doing the dirty work for a lowly hedge knight like Duncan. However, there has being a way for this dynamic duo to stay together, especially considering there are a few novels focusing on their exploits in “Tales of Dunk and Egg.” At the end of the day, “The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” the adaptation of this series, is a perfect buddy comedy – even though one of these pals just revealed he’s a secret royal – so let’s hope Egg stays in Duncan’s service.
“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” airs new episodes Sundays at 10 p.m. EST on HBO and HBO Max.
