All men must die. It’s a saying that came to define Game of Thrones across its eight seasons, as we saw countless men, plus women, children, wights, White Walkers, dragons, and more, killed in what was usually quite a brutal fashion. It’s continued in the equally bloody and violent House of the Dragon, which has delivered several shocking deaths already and will have more in store with two seasons still to come. And now there’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
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In many ways, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is very different from Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. There’s no epic war for the Iron Throne, nor are there any dragons. But what it still has is death, right from the opening scene of Episode 1. This sees Ser Duncan the Tall burying his mentor, Ser Arlan of Pennytree, setting him on the path to the tourney at Ashford and making a name for himself as a knight.
This repeats the premieres of both other shows: Jon Arryn was shown dead when Game of Thrones started, and that was a major instigator for the War of the Five Kings that followed. Aemma Arryn died in House of the Dragon‘s first episode, leading to Viserys marrying Alicent Hightower and the Dance of the Dragons.
Ser Arlan Gives Game Of Thrones Another Crucial Death
Ser Arlan’s death is, in some ways, different to those of the Arryns, and not just because he’s from a different house. They were people who’d be widely missed, who left a void in the realm that needed to be filled (Hand and wife of the king) and sparked even greater political machinations. In contrast, no one but Dunk will ever mourn Arlan. He’s given a simple burial, and it highlights the dangers of life as a hedge knight in Westeros, where you can toil for years and never earn much to show for it at the very end.
At the same time, Ser Arlan’s death is every bit as important. This is the catalyst for everything Dunk does, not just in terms of plot, but even more so in terms of character. He aims to embody what a true knight should be, to carry on the ideals that were taught to him by his mentor. The show is also smartly making Arlan (played by Danny Webb in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ cast) a more present part of the story despite his passing, thanks to flashbacks, which further add to its impact.
Without that death, Dunk’s story, and so much that follows, would never be the same, and in that way it carries on a tradition that started with Game of Thrones Season 1, Episode 1. For as much as that show earned a reputation for shocking deaths, the biggest and best were always the ones that pushed character arcs and storylines forward, and that’s something A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is continuing.
New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms release Sundays at 10pm ET on HBO and HBO Max.
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