A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 3 Review — The Squire

The following contains spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 3.

Halfway through the first season ofA Knight of the Seven Kingdoms feels like about the right time to finally give us some backstory on the second half of the “Dunk and Egg” partnership at the center of George R.R. Martin’s series of novellas. After all, there’s only so many times we can watch this oddball kid twist himself into knots to avoid mentioning anything about his family or reacting to various staples of lower-class life as if he’s never seen them before. What I’m saying is that it’s not like the show’s been subtle about the fact that Egg isn’t precisely who he’s been claiming to be, but the revelation of who he actually is, well. That’s dramatic enough to scramble poor Dunk’s brain entirely. (And maybe everyone else’s too.)

Egg is a Targaryen. And not just any Targaryen, but one of the missing sons Prince Maekar’s been looking for since they arrived at Ashford Meadow. The episode doesn’t spell this out explicitly, but he’s actually his fourth son, Aegon, future ruler of Westeros and great-grandfather to Daenerys Targaryen. It doesn’t feel like too much of a spoiler to mention his name now, not when it’s almost certainly going to come out in the first moments of next week’s episode. Because this is the kind of revelation that changes everything. 

Of course, in hindsight, it’s obvious. This twist explains not just Egg’s reticence to talk about his family in any capacity, but the nervous tension that comes over him every time a Targaryen or one of their symbols is near. It’s why he knows almost nothing about basic tasks like cooking or sewing, but plenty about the specifics of various flavors of Westerosi nobles and their family histories. It’s the reason he sometimes can’t quite grasp the social conventions that are behind the way that Dunk moves in the world. (A Targaryen, one must assume, isn’t raised with the idea that anyone is their better.) And, of course, it also explains that exceptionally weird prophecy he gets from a village fortune teller, which claims he will be king, but die horribly. (Suggestion: If you don’t already know the lore about what happens to Egg later in life? Don’t look it up.)

To his credit, however, Egg appears to be a Targaryen who’s growing up to follow in the footsteps of his uncle Baelor rather than his brother Aerion. He’s up at dawn to put himself and Dunk’s horse through their paces in the world’s most adorable training montage, hoping their combined efforts can somehow help drag their master over the victory line at the joust. He’s curious, works hard, and wants to see how the people live outside of the world he was raised in. He loves watching the tournament and seems to think he could be happy living a simple life in the Reach. Show me any other Targ (okay, maybe Rhaegar) who would ever even consider saying or doing the same. And, most importantly, Egg shows up when it matters. He runs to get help when Tanselle is attacked; he blows his cover to protect Dunk from retaliation. Genuinely, he’s a good kid. That family really doesn’t deserve him. 

If you need further proof of that fact, just look to Aerion, Aegon’s older brother, who is comprised of pretty much every awful Targaryen trait you can think of, all mixed into a single arrogant and odious package. He’s cruel and vindictive, for no reason other than he’s allowed to be. He purposefully stabs Ser Humfrey Hardyng’s horse through the throat during a joust because he knows he can get away with it. He is a man who lives without fear of consequences for his behavior, whether it’s essentially crippling a fellow knight or torturing a young woman for daring to allow a papier-mache dragon to be killed as part of her puppet show. Everyone knows what kind of man he is, and precisely how he behaves. 

It’s interesting, then, that “The Squire” is also the first episode in which we’ve really seen sustained pushback against the Targaryens, both individually and as a larger concept within the world of Westeros. A riot breaks out after Ser Humfrey falls, complete with commoners throwing things at a swiftly retreating Aerion. (Take a second to try to imagine anything like that ever – ever!! — happening to House of the Dragon’s Daemon. How the mighty have fallen, indeed.) Dunk, bless him, doesn’t want to believe that he killed Hardyngs’s horse on purpose, because that’s dishonorable behavior for a knight. But everyone else seems to take it pretty much as read. Apparently, that’s what we expect from a Targaryen these days: Cruelty and dishonor.

The song Egg sings at the beginning of the episode offers a pretty rough rundown of the events of the first Blackfyre Rebellion, complete with the kind of bawdy humor and mockery it’s almost guaranteed King Daeron doesn’t like. But such things are just one of many cracks in the family’s crumbling foundation. Their dragons are long dead. The threat of yet another inter-family civil war is high. And nobody seems nearly as in awe of them as they used to be. 

Or, as Raymun Fossoway so colorfully puts it: “They’re incestuous aliens, Duncan. Blood magickers and tyrants who’ve burned our lands, enslaved our people, and dragged us into their wars without a mote of respect for our history or our customs. Every pale-haired brat they’ve saddled on us has been madder than the last, god knows how. The only thing a Targaryen can do for this realm is finish on his wife’s tits.”

Doesn’t sound much like a dynasty for the ages when you look at it that way, does it? Maybe Egg’s right to try to run away. 

New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premiere Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max, culminating with the finale on February 22.