A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Squire

It is crazy how much they are packing into these thirty minute episodes. The opening of Egg practicing to be a better squire interesting. Then Dunk makes them a Westerosi Breakfast Sandwich (was that roast duck with the scrambled goose egg….how are goose eggs?). I love listening to the things Egg says or sings (last episode he was pretend fighting some Blackfyre rebels, and in this one he sings about the first Blackfyre Rebellion). 

There were three very interesting moments before the end of the episode. First we have Dunk being offered a chance to face Ser Androw by Plummer. Lord Ashford has spent way too much money on this tournament, and his son has high odds of winning. If Dunk faces him, and Plummer makes a large wager on Dunk, Androw will take a dive, and House Ashford can make some of their money back (and Dunk can win Androw’s horse and armor, then ransom it back to him). You can clearly see this does not sit well with Dunk, he believes knights should always do the honorable thing. Again, is Dunk a knight? Did Ser Arlan actually anoint his squire? Who knows, but from what Ser Duncan the Tall is seeing of the real knights, it really does not make a difference.

Second, we have the song of Alice. I loved how Egg sees this song and wonders if Alice is really her name. He then concludes that it does not matter her name, that she does her best with the gifts she has, and makes the world a little bit better. Interesting worldview for some poor kid who seems to have run away from home. Again, Dunk can only stare at the kid and never really seems to question him too much.

And the third thing that was interesting was Raymun Fossoway losing his cool when discussing if Aerion meant to stab the horse with his lance. Through his rant, we get a glimpse of what so many of the Houses think of the Targaryens. 

But then we get to the end of the episode. Egg comes to get Dunk because Aerion is hurting her. When Dunk asks who, Egg responds the puppet girl. Dunk charges into the tent to see Aerion breaking Tanselle’s finger, apparently he was not a fan of her show and was proving to her that the Dragons should never lose. Dunk grabs Aerion and hits him. The prince does not like this and his guards grab Dunk, and they are going to knock out Dunk’s teeth, but then Egg shows up to save the day. Egg orders the guards to release Dunk, or he will report this to his father. Aerion asks Aegon what happened to his hair, and Egg says that he cut it off because he does not want to look like Aerion. 

Aegon and Aerion’s father is out looking for his missing sons (Aegon and Daeron–sometimes it is hard to keep track of these names, especially since the Targaryens only use like six different names for all their kids). He does not seem like the kind of Targaryen who will take kindly to some Hedge Knight striking his son. 

I have seen a few people complaining that Joffrey spoiled this show (and HOTD). I mean, yeah I suppose he did, if you remember what he said while showing Margaery the Targaryen trophies. But even if you do remember, who cares? It just means that you know certain characters will not die during certain scenes, but you do not know if they are horribly injured, or something else.