This post contains major spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdom‘s third episode. If hearing them would be worse than fire and blood, you can instead check out our coverage of episode two.
How can an orphaned young boy from King’s Landing, wise beyond his years, know the name and backstory of every knight in the Seven Kingdoms? How can he know so much about the history and political machinations of the Realm, yet also be completely uneasy around highborn lords? Because he’s actually a Targaryen prince in hiding. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ third episode finally let newcomers to Dunk and Egg’s story in on the big secret. Ser Duncan’s diminutive squire “Egg” is really Aegon Targaryen, grandson of King Daeron II, the “missing” youngest son of Prince Maekar. And now that Dunk knows the truth about his little friend his life is never going to be the same.
The detestable Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen, Prince Maekar’s second oldest son, turned a little puppet show into an act of violence. He considered the pretend death of a wooden dragon as “treason” and attacked the performers. Only, Aerion unknowingly did so in front of his youngest brother who clearly hates him. Egg was in the tent watching Tanselle’s troupe perform. When Aerion and his guards attacked, Egg ran to Ser Duncan for help. The noble knight, with no regard or consideration for his own safety, attacked Aerion after the Prince broke one of Tanselle’s fingers.
No matter how just your cause, righteousness is not a shield when you strike royalty. Aerion was obviously wrong to attack the puppeteers. (Mot to mention politically stupid considering House Targaryen’s low esteem with smallfolk and highborn alike.) But despite their vows to protect the innocent, no knight can strike a Targaryen.
The smug prince immediately had his guards seize Dunk, who had loosened one of Aerion’s teeth. For that he was going to break all of Ser Duncan’s. Then the real punishment would begin. Most people who hit a member of the royal family pay with their life. That’s when the little squire who had called for Dunk’s help, putting the hedge knight in mortal danger, came to his. Egg entered the tent—causing a previously silent Ser Duncan to finally speak up in an effort to protect the boy—and called off the guards by name. They didn’t instantly recognize Aegon because he had shaved his head. Egg had cut off all his hair so he wouldn’t look like the brother he hates.
He might be younger than Aerion, but young Prince Aegon’s words carried enough weight to save Dunk’s teeth. Whether they will be enough to save Ser Duncan from Aerion’s fire and blood remains to be seen. What we know already is a hedge knight no one in the Realm knows, a lowborn man who squired for a knight no one remembers, has had a missing Targaryen child serving as his squire. All while his angry father is out looking for him and his oldest brother. Then, while Maekar was searching for his boys, that same hedge knight struck his other son with fist and foot.
Ser Duncan came to Ashford a nobody hoping to make a name for himself. But a Targaryen with the most famous name in the world, hiding from his family in plain sight, made sure everyone in Westeros will learn about Ser Duncan the Tall is. Because of Egg, the honorable man who instinctively protected the innocent like a true knight should, just went from unknown to infamous.
That’s usually how it goes when anyone in the Seven Kingdoms gets involved with dragons. Even if they didn’t do it on purpose.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He’s relieved we can stop pretending like we don’t know the truth about Egg. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.