Ser Dunk and the Return of the Hero

Why HBO Max's A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a Hit

HBO Max’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdom is the newly branded network’s third highest debut series. During its initial run, the show saw weekly increases in viewership and the numbers continue to climb. The short series is based on the George R. R. Martin novella The Hedge Knight published in 1998.

What makes the show a hit, and would it have been a hit twenty years ago?

(Spoilers follow.)

Who doesn’t like Ser Duncan the Tall? He’s humble. Loyal. Heroic. Most importantly, he has a code. A knight protects the weak – even at the risk of their own fortune and life.

The hedge knight Ser Dunk is the most purely good character in the Game of Thrones universe. Jon Snow is good. He’s also a bastard, cynical and wise to the wicked politics of Westeros. He knows honor exists, but it is limited and colored by allegiance and duty.

“I do not know why tragedy so oft follows after honorable men,” Ser Dunk says. He believes in honor, but he is not so naive to think it comes cheap. After attacking Prince Aerion Targaryen to defend the puppeteer Tanselle, he knows he will get what he deserves “for not knowing his place.”

His plea to the court before the trial by combat is a call to action, a call to honor. For it, he is mocked. And yet, he still believes.

As the series closes, Ser Dunk twice is offered positions in House Targaryen. First by Prince Baelor Targaryen, a noble figure who answered Ser Dunk’s call to honor. Baelor’s offer is everything the hedge night wants. After Baelor’s death, Prince Maekar Targaryen – father of Aerion – also recruits Ser Dunk as a mentor to young Egg. Though Ser Dunk is fond of the boy, he rejects the offer and by implication its politics of cruelty and undeserved comfort of wealth. Joining this version of House Targaryen would compromise Dunk’s code. He cannot accept Maekar’s offer because for Dunk, honor is eternal.

The central theme of the A Song of Fire and Ice series of books and its prequel novel House of the Dragon is “win or die.” Politics is a deadly game, as implied by the titles of its first book and the HBO television adaptation: A Game of Thrones. As I discussed in my previous blog, A Song of Fire and Ice popularized the grimdark fantasy genre. Morality is gray. Heroes do not exist, at least not in a traditional sense.

HBO’s A Game of Thrones boasted big budgets, a big cast, beautiful set design, and of course strong writing based on the modern fantasy classic. It was cruel and cynical. For eight years it was must-see television. Its cynicism felt fresh and smart. A Game of Thrones was a show for its era.

Events of the early 21st century crushed our naive faith in heroes and fair play. We experienced 9/11, ongoing war, the worst housing and market crash since the Great Depression, and the Occupy Movement. The creeping influence of social media into our lives compounded feelings of powerlessness and isolation. Social media begot the age of the troll. Nothing was sacred

This same period was a golden age of television. In addition to A Game of Thrones, there was Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead: all bleak, all sharing common themes of corruption and despair. They satisfied a disaffected audience, reinforcing a skeptical view of the foundations of our dying American mythology. Fair play does not pay off in a zombie apocalypse or in an ad firm, just as it did not in real life.

Had A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms aired in 2008, it likely would have been overlooked or dismissed by viewers as sentimental or Capraesque. Jaded viewers would have laughed at Ser Dunk’s belief in honor.

A pandemic, war, corruption, genocide, and politics of hate have beaten us down. We are exhausted. We yearn for simpler times and the belief that good can still prevail or at the very least exist. We want heroes again. In the face of violence and corruption, we want to believe in honor. We want good to win. If it doesn’t, at least we can still remain true to our code. And that gives us hope.

We love Ser Dunk because he is us, today. Or, at the very least, he is who we want to be.