“She was in form and intellect most exquisite. The unfortunate parents ventured their all on this frail Bark, and the wreck was total.”
-Inscription on the tomb of Penelope Boothby, 1786-1791, Derbyshire
The wreck:
I hadn’t even had a post-gym shower when I clicked play on the episode. It was almost as if I wanted to take in the Trial of Seven in the same sweaty, sore, disorientated state as the Knights of the Seven Kingdoms themselves.
Given the emotional devastation that surrendered my body to gravity it was probably good I wasn’t wearing anything nice, because wow, I need to vacuum my tiles.
It’s days later, but I’m still mentally peeling myself off the floor.
Watching that claustrophobic, clattering episode left me feeling like I was in a blender, whipped and slashed like so many frozen blueberries. I don’t recall exactly what happened, only that my insides turned to smoothie.
I’ve been pondering why it’s hit me so hard, when I pointed out the Foreshadowing of Daeron’s Dream just last week. My head knew this was coming.
I remember the shock of the worst of them: Ned Stark, Robb Stark, Catelyn Stark, Ygritte, Oberyn Martell, Jon Snow, Lyanna Mormont.
House of the Dragon has had loss and tragedy, particularly the needless death of Rhaenys, The Queen Who Never Was.
Maybe it’s just time and distance removing some of the calluses on my heart, but it feels like Baelor’s end hit harder.
Good old-fashioned storytelling is the main, magical ingredient. In just four episodes clocking in at just over two hours, and with far less screen time for Baelor than Dunk and Egg themselves, the series was niftily able to depict the shoes that would be impossible to fill should anything happen to the Hand/Heir.
And sure, I attached a salt-and-pepper sexual angle to Baelor, and not getting more stoic and just-the-right-kind-of-dirty-gritty Bertie Carvel man-candy crack is its own punishment. I’m immature and slightly pervy, and have retreated into watching him in Dalgliesh on Britbox as some sort of refined-Baelor-in-a-three-piece-suit placebo.
(As an aside, I highly recommend it. He’s P.D James’ semi-depressed poet policeman, and he mostly stands around with his arms crossed listening to dodgy people claim they’re not murderers, while never revealing anything on his inscrutable face. Ohh, I could heal him.)
But there’s another element too - and I’m sorry to be all navel-gaze-y here - but it’s this guy.
I now understand how much Stu would have loved Baelor on the page, and therefore how delighted he would have been by the character’s translation to the screen.
I hadn’t read the Dunk and Egg novellas, and likely wasn’t going to just in case they had spoilers, so it wasn’t a character we ever got the chance to discuss and rave about together. I can picture him guffawing at my juvenile Baelor-lust, while gently avoiding any Pertinent Questions about Potential Consequences.
But I realise Stu was also like Baelor. Smart, erudite, inquisitive and fair, with great memories for detail and an excellent ability to communicate. Stu was a journalist, and in a weird coincidence, so too was actor Bertie Carvel’s father.
“The realm needs good men.”
Stu was one of those. He truly, truly was. Like Baelor, his untimely death robbed us of his future potential.
And so it seems the fantasy tragedy has had extra punch from the real-world recognition of what a loss like that is like.
Gosh, this is all making for a sad read, isn’t it?
COME ON SER ARLAN SHOW US YA TODGER AGAIN
Sorry, I feel like the sincerity might be a tad much. Best counteract it with some knob gags.
I guess we’ve got to put our helms on and recap this baby. Or as my friend Steph said, “Bae-by”.
The floor has been nice, but ya girl’s gotta work now. Come on MoK… GET UP.
S1E5: In the Name of the Mother
“Do not panic.”
Yeah, good luck on that one, Baelor. My Apple Watch was smoking before even seeing you astride your horse, looking all sexy in the foggy dawn, telling Team Dunk that the other side is out for blood.
Raymun is busy upchucking off his pony’s starboard side, once again hitting the series target of bodily emissions within 30 seconds, and sending Dunk out in sympathy. Lyonel looks bemused, while the broken-leg knight laughs at them as “green f***ing boys!”
If I may tap out here for a moment, both filler knights are called Ser Humphrey, which, given impending events, seems to be the Westeros equivalent of a Star Trek red shirt. One of them - who must be a descendant of Lord I’m-Covered-In-BEEEEESbury from Hot D - has the most insanely orange moustache I’ve ever seen. The hair and makeup team did not take from nature that day, my friends. His soup saver exactly matches the beehives on his breastplate.
He’s worried about the Kingsguard, but Baelor’s plan is to keep them busy because they’re sworn not to hurt him, and let the gods decide if that’s an acceptable cheat code.
Lyonel Baratheon’s sassy contribution to the pep talk, which along with the title referencing the knight’s oath to protect the young and innocent, seems to serve as a theme for this episode.
“Mother loved you best, eh? Shame. No man fights so fierce as one neglected by his mother.”
Baelor doesn’t bite.
Now far be it for me to go all tidal-wave feminist on you here, but given what happens over the next 35 minutes, that sounds an awful lot like woman-blaming.
Love your son, and he will not have the fire needed for battle. Abandon your son, and let the world hope his potentially destructive tendencies remain …manageable?
Frankly it’s a fairly ordinary set of options.
And let’s not forget Baelor has a Dad too, the actual King, who seems to be at least affectionate, at least enough to have Baelor serve as Hand. Does that make him weaker? Didn’t he beat the Blackfyre Rebellion? Are we just supposed to accept consigning all emotional regulation to the women, Lyonel? I ask you, is that fair?
I have to work on this thesis further, but given 100% of the violence carried out in this episode is done by men - whether they had mothers or not - I’m just not ready for my sex to take the entire blame on that.
Back on the field, a young septon offers prayers, but doesn’t even look convinced himself as he intones “May death sustain life” while looking right at Dunk.
When Dunk puts on his helmet, the already clouded field becomes even more opaque, with Dunk’s sight restricted to a tiny slit.
The show’s editors start their Emmy campaign here, fading the braying and hoof-thumping of the horses so that there’s no clear sense of a starting line, of a beginning.
We see the baddies charge first, then Team Dunk rolls out. Except of course, Dunk himself, who is paralysed on his horse. There goes that “Stay in formation” instruction.
Egg can be heard faintly… egging them both on, and eventually Dunk and Thunder surge forward into the fray.
With a whoosh the perspective changes from a wide shot of the field into the tiny field of Dunk’s vision… and immediately cops a lance to the hip.
He wheels around to see one of his team knocked into the mud by a Kingsguard, throws his shield into the wet ground and draws his sword. When he turns back there’s a brief moment of Aerion swinging a morningstar directly at him…. And it hits.
For a little guy, and a bit of a cheat, Aerion has some mad skills. Dunk and Thunder are both propelled backwards, into nothingness.
Aaaaaaaaaand now we’re going to spend some time in Flashback City, conveniently located in and around King’s Landing.
A young Dunk is plundering the body of a fallen knight and his horse after an apparent great battle. But the dead is unquiet, indeed he stutters to life and starts calling for his mother. Instinctively the teenage Dunk goes to put him down like an animal in pain, but is warned off by his friend, Tragic Back Story. Rafe for short.
She thinks they can ransom him, but he doesn’t survive their attempts to haul him loose. Dunk learns that you’re supposed to say words over the bodies of dead noblemen, but nothing comes to mind (a skill he’s only marginally better at by the time Ser Arlan dies).
The pair wander back to the city via a road that looks very familiar from Game of Thrones, and hide from a squire who seems to have the body of his dead master thrown over a horse. The sigil seems to be a goose in a chalice, which I’m sure is a reference the book nerds will know.
Young Dunk seems something of an optimist - the Blackfyre Rebellion is over, and there’s the promise of free bread. But Tragic Back Story is not having it. “No one forgets shit. You hurt someone, they hurt you back.” TBS wants a TBC somewhere other than King’s Landing.
Back in Fleabottom, they make their way around a more condensed and maze-like space than we saw in Game of Thrones. They pawn their ill-gotten gains, except for the unwanted Blackfyre leather. They’ll have to find another BDSM club to buy that one.
They run into trouble with a skeezy fellow named Alester, who appears to be missing a hand. He’s wearing a raggy gold-coloured outfit that indicates the City Watch. They manage to give him the ol’ slip and sip, as TBS makes off with his goon bag.
The pair bunker down in what appears to be the crawl space of a goat pen. Tragic Back Story is committed to the “Escape from King’s Landing” plan, but Dunk is starting to ponder the odds of the streets of anywhere being paved with gold.
Besides, his Mum might come back for him. He knows she’s dead, but also she might just be trying to find him. So maybe he should be here, in case his dead mum returns for the noble reason of Proper Parenting.
I can’t tell whether Tragic Back Story missed Feminism 101, or took an accelerated course in “Reasons Why Women Aren’t Safe Around Here”.
Even if Dunk’s mum was still alive, she wouldn’t come back for him. They’re each other’s family now, and they love each other, in that fierce but naive way of children. They stick to the plan.
The next morning they take their silver and attempt to buy passage to the Free Cities. But supply and demand is a bitch, and their carefully stolen silver is not enough.
It IS enough though for skeezy Alester and some of his gold cloak friends, who corner them in a pig pen and go through their spoils.
Dunk wants to take the opportunity to go, even as skeezy Alester fondles Rafe’s hair with limply predatory intention.
With the same quick hands she use to nick his ale bladder, Tragic Back Story slips his knife from its sheath and follows Dunk.
But I guess losing a hand makes you more conscious of things not being where they should be., because Alester curses Rafe, grabs her from behind, takes back the knife and opens her throat.
Dunk - seeing the same red mist that would later descend in that drama tent with Tanselle - jumps on Alester’s back, going full Mike Tyson on his ear and neck.
But he’s no match for the group of them, he takes a spear to the calf, and things are looking bleak until a highly-localised hurricane smashes out of a nearby door.
“In the name of the Mother, leave that boy be!”
In the space of about six seconds, Ser Arlan of Pennytree punches out one dude, throws up, draws his sword, spins and slices off a Gold Cloak’s head, which thuds to a landing in front of the pigs.
He then turns his attention to skeezy Alester, and after a chaotic clash of swords, grabs a nearby meathook and hangs Alester’s nads on it. Grabbing the same knife that just killed Rafe, Ser Arlan pushes it firmly into Alester’s neck. Game over.
Dunk can only watch the life bubble out of the wound on Rafe’s neck, then tremble as Ser Arlan retrieves his bloody sword and sods off.
The trembling continues back as he frets at the loss of his friend. I mean, what were the CHANCES something like that would happen to Tragic Back Story?
But the gods give Dunk a break. He hears, and then sees Ser Arlan stumbling away from Fleabottom. His great blue eyes widen. I don’t think a concrete plan formed in his brain; rather I think he acted on instinct again, like he did with the dying knight.
He hauls his bloody leg behind him as he begins a process of stalking Ser Arlan of Pennytree.
Drunk or mad or both, the hedge knight doesn’t seem to notice, not even when Dunk steals into his campsite, draws his sword from the scabbard, pats his horses, and even thinks about putting on his helmet - a neat nod to the difference between Dunk and Egg’s status, considering Egg later has no qualms about shoving that thing on his chrome dome.
Day by day, Dunk limps along behind Ser Arlan, who hears the snap, crackle and occasional vomiting sounds of someone near him, but seems quite happy to do his usual routine of sword practice (Dunk whittles a branch in another echo of Egg) followed by excessive drinking and dancing by firelight.
I was content to label his utterings as the unhinged rantings of a madman, but while discussing the episode with my friend Steph, she dropped the trivia titbit that he was speaking Dothraki. Dothraki! At this time of year, in this location? Maybe that’s an excuse for why I didn’t recognise it.
At one point Ser Arlan wakes up to find he’s accidentally fallen asleep on a knife, which has burrowed its way into his side. “You old fool,” he remonstrates, before noticing Dunk watching him from a hill; he notices him fall. Perhaps some assistance wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Starved and thirsty, Dunk is at the point of exhaustion and most likely the point of death. How his wound hasn’t become infected and killed him already is a miracle. Ser Arlan was clearly testing his mettle; it doesn’t bear thinking too hard about whether he was content to let the kid die as a sort of natural selection process.
He stands above Dunk, a water bladder dangling from one hand. But he offers him an olive branch.
GET UP.
The memory spurs present-day Dunk back into consciousness, but he doesn’t find anything pleasant there.
Aerion rounds on him with a second blow from the mace, then a third. He’s knocked back to the ground by a horse, before grappling Aerion down into the mud.
It’s difficult to see what else is happening, as lances smash and fall around them. Baelor’s triumphant entry last week was greeted with the return of the Game of Thrones theme, but there’s no music here now, for there is nothing that could - or should - undermine the terror of bodies being destroyed.
All colour and rank and distinction are lost as Dunk tries to shove Aerion into submission. But Bright Flame has the bright idea to stab Dunk in the leg, and the advantage flips again. For a moment Dunk holds Aerion back, until he re-angles the knife and pushes it straight through the palm of his hand.
Aerion is knocked into the mud by a rider (possibly Baelor himself?), but then Dunk is knocked down again too. The pair clash with swords, with Aerion throwing his into Dunk’s thigh, then ripped it out and shoving the handle through the gap in his helmet, busting his eye.
Dunk rips off his helmet, thrusting blindly through the fog. He sword finds purchase in Aerion’s upper thigh - a potential risk to the femoral artery and/or Aerion’s baby-making facilities.
“Aerion!” shouts Prince Maekar, who’s always come across as a bit of a dick, but here shows some signs of actually being a caring father. To demonstrate this, he thrusts a lance up into Lyonel Baratheon’s horse, bringing the Laughing Storm to the ground. “My boy, my boy!” he cries as two others carry him backwards.
Dunk and Aeron are both… to put it bluntly… f**ked.
This trial has been agonising to watch (indeed, I watched most of it through my fingers), but so good at showing the sheer physical toll of heavy combat. There may be puddles on the field, but this is no water-dancing.
Dunk collapses to his backside, ears ringing, one eye closed. “Yield!” Aerion demands.
But Egg isn’t ready for that ending.
“Get up. Get up, Ser,” he begs, over and over.
“He’s dead! It’s over!” cries Aerion.
“Get up, Ser Duncan! Get up!”
GET UP.
Ser Arlan’s voice bounces into Dunk’s head again. His good eye opens, and he coughs blood and spit and mud.
Egg cries “Wait!” to stop Lord Ashford ending the fight, and Dunk begins to struggle to his feet.
Egg is inspired; and the crowd is too. “Up! Up! Up!” they chant, firmly on the underdog’s side now.
Exhausted and bleeding, Aerion grimly closes his visor again. The pair pick up their swords, but they clumsily miss.
The sound is dampened as Dunk desperately grabs for the Targaryen’s shield and begins to batter its owner’s head.
Despite my intense dislike of Pointy-Faced Blondie, I found myself crying “No, Dunk, no!” Like he might lose a piece of himself with such a brutal dispatching - justified though it may be.
There’s the sense of the Fleabottom street rat in Dunk’s response, the desperate hacking of the boy who jumped on the skeezy Gold Cloak’s shoulders when his only family was sliced open.
But there’s also the unique discipline of Ser Arlan of Pennytree, his beloved(?) mentor: that the only time you can fight back from death is when you’re already there.
“I yield,” submits Aerion, as fellow champions still bash and crash around them.
Dunk drags Aerion by the feet towards the viewing stands, then forces him to tell Lord Ashford. “I withdraw my accusation,” he gulps, and the PROPER GODDAMN MEDIEVAL TRUMPET sounds to signify the end of one of the best/worst things I’ve ever seen.
Excellent, excellent, so that’s that then? Retreat to the locker rooms, get the physios in, stitch up broken lips and rip the top off a few coldies?
Not quite.
Dunk collapses into the arms of Steely Pate and the newly-minted Ser Everybody Loves Raymun.
Quick aside - how the HELL did Raymun survive that? Sure, he’s limping, but given it turns out both experienced Sers Humphrey - Beesbury and Hardyng - died in the first charge, how did Raymun escape?
Maybe he delivered the fake-out blow on Daeron then stayed out of the worst of it? He seemed the mostly lightly protected out of all Dunk’s team, but clearly the gods were good and bestowed on him the mightiest of plot armour.
No matter. He and Steely Pate are triaging Duncan’s many injuries, and decide killing the pain with liquor then pouring boiling oil on the wounds will help. Egg slips in, looking worried.
“Wine, not oil. Oil will kill him.”
GASP! It’s BAELOR! MY BELOVED SALT-AND-PEPPER FOX! THE DRAGON! He’s STANDING! And speaking with QUIET CALM! You might even say a little TOO CALM!
Baelor says he will send his Maester to look at Duncan once he’s finished treating Prince Meerkat.
Dunk, overcome with emotion, shoves his carers to one side and bends the knee in front of Baelor. Breath ragged but intention strong, pleads to be “his man”.
“I need good men, Ser Duncan. The realm…”
All of a sudden he lets go, a short stumble backwards. Ser Raymun and Steely Pate try to lever him back into a seated position, not realising the greater danger gathering.
“Ser Raymun, my helm if you would be so kind. The visor… visor’s cracked. My fingers… feel like wood.”
Raymun’s face changes, and he asks Steely Pate to help him get the helmet off. It’s been smashed in at the back.
“My brother’s mace, most like. He’s strong.”
The two men wrench the helmet off, and recoil in horror. “Gods be good,” whispers the smith.
Baelor touches the back of his head, and sees blood on his armour. His eyes widen, and he turns, revealing pulp where a skull should be.
Egg gasps. Baelor falls.
Dunk sinks to his side, cradling the man who saved him.
“Get up!” he sobs. “Get up Your Grace!”
But Ser Arlan’s discipline cannot help here.
There was a moment, just as Aerion yields to Dunk, when Maeker swung his mace almost randomly, and it connected with a helmet. We now know that was Baelor, and a blow from his own brother has killed him. I’ve never taken to Prince Maekar, but I can’t see him doing it deliberately.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Dunk sobs, congealing blood flicking at the corners of his mouth.
He wanted to stand tall, and serve a noble house. He wanted to protect the innocent, but in doing so the realm has lost its best weapon.
It’s not his fault. Baelor knew the risks and chose to stand with him anyway. But that is cold comfort in that small alley off a tourney field in Ashford, where the great dragon fell to earth.
Yay! Best Moments
Dunk’s soul-shattering grief as he cradles a dying Baelor is not anything I want to watch again, but will because what a scene. What a man.
But for a tiny beautiful character moment - after taking his lance from his squire, Dunk repeats a previous exchange with Egg, instructing him to be there when he gets back, or he’ll hunt him with dogs. The affection is there, but there’s no playfulness now. Dunk is trying to give Egg a good memory, a fond moment he can remember him by, in case he bleeds out in the mud.
And it’s Egg who woofs this time, showing himself to be Dunk’s best friend. What is a dog, if not loyal?
Zing! Best Lines
For sheer intensity of delivery, it has to be Egg’s almost slow-motion “Waaaaaiiiiiittttt!” as Dunk’s eyes blink open just before he’s about to be counted out.
But for sheer delight, it has to be Sassy Whore’s solo cheer of “Come on!” from the stands, and awkwardly sitting back down when Douchey Dondarrion (who I didn’t see last week but was obviously there all along) gave her a LOOK.
Ew, gross
After quality grossness in every episode thus far, this one rises above all of them. The gasping death of the flashback knight, Tragic Back Story’s death, the pre-game vom, that dagger going through Dunk’s hand, that dagger going up into Aerion’s bollock area, Dunk’s swollen eye, and of course, the shocking sight of Baelor’s skull, bloody and missing.
But for something possibly unique to the whole extended Game of Thrones-i-verse, I think that was the first time we’ve seen pigs noshing on a freshly decapitated head, so that was cool.
Boo, sucks
I mean, you know. You saw it. It’s a whole thing.
If you didn’t catch it, my rage and despair and pain and lust and lovelorn sadness all got packaged up in parody song, combining A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and the newly released Wuthering Heights. So zeitgeisty.