I am soooo taken in by the incredible, efficient storytelling of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Small interactions which are so revealing, so devastating, which oftentimes recontextualise what came before.
Final ep, Dunk asks Ser Arlan why he never knighted him. Ser Arlan goes off on one of his loopy spiels…he talks about the meaning of his name…the penny tree. Young boys nail a penny to this enormous great oak, taking down the penny when returning from battle. ‘Us boys,’ he says. But Arlan is an old man. And the trouble with the great oak is that it’s difficult to find a new spot to nail a new penny.
Dunk…doesn’t understand him. He’s green. Young and simple. But the audience should get it…my eyes wanted to water…Arlan just told us why he didn’t — couldn’t — do it to Dunk. Couldn’t knight him. Couldn’t have him live his sordid life. His shitty, hedge knight life, where he had nothing and was remembered by no one. Where knight after knight die and die young and that tree is shining with pennies no one will collect. And maybe that is selfish and arrogant, maybe he just wanted to keep Dunk to himself, even though being a knight was all Dunk wanted in the world, Arlan thought he knew best.
But it isn’t the truth, about a hedge knight. Because the truth is Dunk has shown us all along what the life and times of this man means - Dunk loves him, Prince Baelor of all people remembered him, all his teachings in fact made Dunk the just and courageous and righteous man he is!
And at the end of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Dunk chooses to take on Egg with the mentoring model that made him. The life of a hedge knight. And he also finally understands Arlan, I think - he nails that penny from his inherited sword, Arlan’s sword, onto the tree…
This show is so so sooo good. And another example, a small one, is Daeron returning to tell Dunk the tale of his cruel young (middle) brother. That he wasn’t always this way. That he liked fishing. We already know from a previous ep that Daeron is a seer…he sees visions of the future. Yet he makes this particular plea to Dunk. He makes it sober and sincerely. They are at a crossroads. If Dunk does not take on Egg, the same future, a bad future, may lay ahead. But this time, Dunk understands him.
Just incredible framing of Ser Arlan (the past), and just that tiny nudge from Daeron (the future), twisting in this perfect double helix to end the show with the duo on horseback, and the almost…beautiful, heroic, white-horsed Ser Arlan trotting beside them, before ambling off into the hedges.
Stunning ending to this show. Stunning storytelling. There’s so many tiny incredible tidbits just like these scenes littered throughout the show!