A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Hard Salt Beef

This episode was a little sad. Dunk is slowly realizing that knights are not the great heroic ideal that he was raised to believe. First, no one remembers Ser Arlan, and during the start of the tournament, the top-tier knights seem to joust first, and you can see that Dunk is in awe, and also a little saddened that his mentor was not at that level. But he also realizes that these knights are nothing like what Ser Arlan tought. They are mostly all assholes. By the end of the episode, Dunk has vowed to live up to Arlan’s legacy, and he will teach these knights what that means. Pretty cool.

A few of my favorite parts…
-Dunk and Egg have some great conversations. My favorite is when Egg complains that he has always been small and that everyone always says that, Dunk says “people have been calling me dumb my whole life.” Egg then waits, and goes “and?” Dunk says ‘and what?” Egg’s expressions during that conversation should earn the actor an award. Just such a great scene. 

-Ser Arlan truly wields a great sword…if you watched the episode’s opening, you know what I mean. I do not think that was mentioned in the book (or was it?).

-I keep seeing comments from people that it was nice to see a good Targaryen, in Prince Baelor. There are good Targs (remember the saying, the gods flip a coin when a Targaryen is born–crazy/sane). Some of the earlier kings were great. It always seems like the kids of great kings go either way.

-Speaking of Dunk being a bit dense…he really does not listen to the things that Egg says, and how much it would probably give away his true identity (I do not think this is a spoiler, the show is telegraphing it for us). Dunk does not find it weird that Egg knows that Ser Donnel comes from a powerful merchant family that owns a bunch of crabbing ships. Or that Egg knows all the Houses. And, if you notice, Egg says “my lord” not “m’lord.” Remember, that is how Lord Tywin knew Arya was lying about her identity.