HBO’s new Sport of Thrones spin-off, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, options extra knights than you may shake a lance at.
The Home of the Dragon sequel takes place at a event (or “tourney”) in The Attain’s Ashford Meadow, the place solely knights are allowed to enter “the lists” — areas for publicly demonstrating their fight and jousting abilities. However what of Ser Duncan “Dunk” the Tall (Peter Claffey), who is consistently scorned as a “hedge knight” moderately than a “true knight.”
What precisely is a hedge knight, and why does it matter?
Firstly, knights. Westerosi knights are like actual knights from medieval historical past, a well-armed warrior class who serve a lord or monarch and are certain by a chivalric code to guard the realm and defend the harmless. Kings, princes, and lords will also be knights. They’re expert at horseback fight and the brutal artwork of jousting, and so they bear a coat of arms on their banners and shields to point out off their lineage — all the good homes of Westeros have knights. And so they normally have a squire to attend them, as a result of that armor’s not going to shine itself.
As Grasp of Video games Plummer (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) explains in episode 1 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, “Any knight could make a knight.” Jaime Lannister additionally famously says this line within the Sport of Thrones collection when knighting Brienne of Tarth. This implies anybody can bear “the accolade” — bending the knee, having a sword touched on both shoulder, and being dubbed a “Ser” — so long as it is finished by one other knight or a monarch. However you completely want witnesses. That is tough for Dunk, as he explains in episode 1. His grasp, Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), knighted him together with his longsword earlier than he died, however sadly, the one witnesses have been a thorn tree and a robin, so he wants a knight or lord to vouch for him to enter the tourney.
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Knights additionally want cash. As Plummer explains to Dunk, you want ample money for armor, horses, coaching, and males that will help you with all of that. Like a contemporary equestrian, it is not an affordable life. Plus, in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (and likewise in historical past), in case you lose within the tourney to a different knight, they get all your gear, which you need to pay a ransom to get again.
However what’s a hedge knight?
Dunk is a full-time camper.
Credit score: Steffan Hill / HBO
Primarily, hedge knights are the identical as true knights, besides they do not serve a lord, grasp, or nice home — very very similar to the masterless samurai generally known as ronin. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms relies on George R.R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas together with The Hedge Knight, during which Martin describes Dunk like this:
“The one life he knew was the lifetime of a hedge knight, using from hold to maintain, taking service with this lord and that lord, preventing of their battles and consuming of their halls till the warfare was finished, then transferring on. There have been tourneys now and again as properly, although much less typically, and he knew that some hedge knights turned robber throughout lean winters, although the outdated man by no means had.”
Each Ser Dunk and his grasp, Ser Arlan of Pennytree, are hedge knights — and Dunk offers us tiny scraps of his grasp’s historical past serving varied lords in battle, however not completely. “Ser Arlan at all times stated a hedge knight was the truest form of knight,” Dunk remarks to his horse in episode 1, continuously protecting sight of the sacred oath of all knights: serving the realm and defending the weak and harmless.
Nevertheless, hedge knights have a nasty rep, seen by most individuals of Westeros as much less essential, much less formidable knights, first described by Pink (Rowan Robinson) in episode 1 as “like a knight however sadder.”
“Acquired to sleep within the hedges ‘trigger no lord’ll have it,” she continues, referring to the truth that “true knights” who serve the good homes and palaces of Westeros reside among the many aristocracy or on their very own awarded lands. Dunk sleeps below the celebrities tenting every night time, whereas the likes of Ser Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings) has a complete luxe pavilion set-up and lands to return to.
If Dunk manages to be victorious on the tourney, may he land himself a candy place in the home of Baratheon or the like? Or as soon as a hedge knight, at all times a hedge knight?
