Was he a shit knight? Or a great knight?
Episode 2 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms opens with Duncan exalting the—ahem—sizable virtues of Ser Arlan of Pennytree. It closes with him doing a 180, wondering whether, in fact, his late master, who died on the side of a road and is remembered by almost no one, was little more than a washout vagabond.
This is one of the central themes of all of George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas. What do virtues like honor, chivalry, and duty mean in Westeros’s often bleak, complicated society? Do they even exist? If they do, are they important? And more presently for Dunk, if Ser Arlan was never able to become a champion in nearly 60 years of life, what hope is there for his squire?
Even outside the scenes involving Ser Arlan, this episode digs deep into these themes of knighthood, honor, chivalry, and virtue. Dunk is struck with awe when he learns that Ser Donnel of Duskendale is but the son of a crabber—a seeming confirmation that merit could push him up the ranks and into the service of not just any Westerosi house, but the greatest of them all. His hopes are dashed when Egg tells him that, no, actually, Donnel’s father is quite wealthy and powerful himself. Even Dunk’s interaction with the blacksmith Steely Pate is a commentary on knighthood—Pate makes basic plain armor that will serve a knight “better” in actual jousts and combat, implying that knights who prefer ceremonial plate with fancy designs are more into the aesthetics of knighthood than the less glamorous reality. And does that make them lesser knights?
What does make a good knight? Normally, we’d start at the beginning—at a knight’s oaths and vows. But there’s a complication: We’ve never seen a true knighting ceremony on the page! The closest we get is actually later in The Hedge Knight, when [REDACTED] knights [REDACTED]. But the ceremony is cut off before we get to see the whole thing. Here’s how it looks in Martin’s words:
“In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave.” The sword moved from his right shoulder to his left. “In the name of the Father I charge you to be just.” Back to the right. “In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent.” The left. “In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women.”
This is where our perspective shifts to other events (I’m being vague to avoid spoilers). But presumably this knight—and virtually all knights in Westeros—is also charged to do something in the names of the Crone, Smith, and Stranger, the other gods that round out the Faith of the Seven. Knighthood is an Andal tradition, and the Faith of the Seven is the Andal religion. Seven is a very important number in that religion, obviously, so it’s almost unthinkable that they’d stop at four charges and leave the other gods unmentioned. Plus, in other places in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, there are references to knights being anointed with “seven oils,” and while we never see those oils, it seems reasonable that those go along with seven vows.
We have seen one knighthood ceremony on-screen, however. In Season 8 of Game of Thrones, Jaime Lannister knights Brienne of Tarth:
Here, Jaime uses the exact same script from The Hedge Knight above, only he stops at the Mother—he doesn’t even get to the Maid. Knowing what we know about the Faith of the Seven, though, I have to think that the writers for Season 8 lifted the vows for Brienne’s knighthood from The Hedge Knight but cut them even shorter for television. Or maybe the writers for Season 8 just kinda forgot there are seven gods. Either way, this scene likely isn’t a reliable example of knighthood in Westeros.
There is one other knighthood ceremony seen in the books, when Beric Dondarrion knights Gendry in A Storm of Swords. But since Beric is a follower of R’hllor and not an adherent of the Faith of the Seven, his ritual looks quite different. Beric simply asks Gendry to “swear before the eyes of gods and men to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to protect all women and children, to obey your captains, your liege lord, and your king, to fight bravely when needed and do such other tasks as are laid upon you, however hard or humble or dangerous they may be.” While this shouldn’t be indicative of the vows taken by the vast majority of Westeros’s knights, you get the gist of it: Knights are supposed to stand up for pretty standard chivalric virtues—protecting the innocent, defending the weak, fighting for justice, etc. They’re the “good guys” in Westeros, at least in theory.
But this is Martin’s world, and Martin’s instinct is to always turn staple fantasy tropes on their head. Knighthood certainly receives this treatment. In a 2000 interview, Martin made his perspective on knighthood plain:
We've always had a class of "protectors." The church divided us into knights and those the knights were suppose to protect, with the church praying for both. The worker, the prayer and the fighter. Of course, the way it often worked out is the people the peasants often needed the most protection from were their own protectors. I think there is a powerful story in that. The ideals of knighthood embody some of the finest ideals the human race has ever come up with. The reality was somewhat less than that, and often horribly so. Of course, that is true in the Seven Kingdoms as well.
This should be the through line for our understanding of knighthood. There is the label of knighthood—any knight can make a knight, and there are few hard or fast requirements. Then there are the actual ideals of knighthood. One does not guarantee the other. Or, as the Hound tells Sansa Stark in A Clash of Kings when she insists that “true knights” should protect the weak: “There are no true knights, no more than there are gods. If you can't protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don't ever believe any different.”
So what else do we know about knights? For one, not all knights are equal in status. Landed knights are essentially at the pinnacle of knighthood. These are the ones who hold a keep or castle of their own but have not achieved the rank of lord. Think of Davos Seaworth, who received a keep at Cape Wrath after Stannis Baratheon knighted him. Or Gregor Clegane—he’s a knight as well as the master of Clegane’s Keep in the Westerlands.
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Then there are household knights. These knights are what probably most in Westeros think of when they think of a knight—and what Dunk aspires to. These knights serve a greater lord or house. Think of all of the knights of the Kingsguard. Great houses would have dozens of knights in their service.
Finally, there are hedge knights—knights without any home or master. Hedge knights are polarizing, to say the least. To many in Westeros, hedge knights are little more than upjumped sellswords, mercenaries who drift from one lord to another, fighting alongside their household knights and men-at-arms until some war or squabble is over and then moving on. They are useful to these houses but aren’t viewed as trustworthy. In The Hedge Knight, Dunk reflects that “some hedge knights turned robber during lean winters.”
The other view is that hedge knights are actually the “truest kind of knight,” as Arlan once told Dunk. “Other knights serve the lords who keep them, or from whom they hold their lands, but we serve where we will, for men whose causes we believe in,” Arlan said. “Every knight swears to protect the weak and innocent, but we keep the vow best, I think.” Arlan, it’s noted in both the novella and show, had never turned robber. He always helped those in need, even if it never brought him wealth or status—or even a roof over his head.
Some of the most despicable characters in A Song of Ice and Fire were knights. Gregor Clegane. Meryn Trant. Boros Blount. Amory Lorch. Cruelty and malice can go alongside knighthood just as well as honor and chivalry.
Dunk hasn’t encountered a character like that, at least not yet. It’s true that Arlan never won a tourney and never did much worth remembering. But as one great knight, Ser Barristan Selmy, says in A Dance With Dragons, “Without honor, a knight is no more than a common killer. It is better to die with honor than to live without it.”
Ser Arlan may not have been a celebrated knight, but he died with honor, at least. Dunk seems well on his way to keeping his honor—time will tell whether he can accomplish something worth remembering.
