Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms as well as some future events from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire universe. “Visor’s cracked. My fingers feel like word.”[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]As Prince Baelor “Breakspear” Targaryen’s fateful words in the closing minutes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘s fifth episode proved once again, if there’s a character who seems too good to be true in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire universe, they’re likely not long for this world.The death of Hand of the King and heir to the Iron Throne Baelor (played by Bertie Carvel) as a result of the brutal Trial of Seven of Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) is an event that echoes across generations in Martin’s saga. As the author himself put it when asked in a 2022 interview about his favorite “seemingly minor moment” that changed the course of Westeros’ history, “The death of Baelor Breakspear—who was the heir, next in line to the throne, and I think would’ve been a very strong and competent king—who dies to defend the honor of an insignificant hedge knight. How is Westeros history different if Baelor does not die? That would be very significant.”As those who are familiar with Westerosi lore already know, the eventual crowning of Maekar Targaryen (Sam Spruell) as king in place of his late older brother Baelor ultimately leads to Aerys II “The Mad King” Targaryen inheriting the throne around 40 years later. This, in turn, kickstarts the events of Game of Thrones, resulting in Robert’s Rebellion, the exile of the Mad King’s daughter Daenerys Targaryen, and the eventual return of dragons to the world. You know the rest, Thrones fans.But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First, let’s talk about how the days immediately following Baelor’s death played out in the Season 1 finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Although Dunk is cleared of all charges as a result of his victory against Maekar’s son Aerion (Finn Bennett) in the Trial of Seven, he’s not in a good place at the start of the sixth installment of Martin and co-creator Ira Parker’s Thrones spinoff series. Not only was Dunk nearly fatally wounded in the trial, he’s also distraught over Baelor dying in a bid to save him from an unjust sentence being passed against him. “If I had not fought, you would have had my hand and foot. I sat under the tree this morning and I asked, could I have spared one?” Dunk muses in his audience with Maekar. “I mean, how can a foot be worth a prince’s life?”However, now that the tourney at Ashford Meadow is over, Dunk must decide what to do next. Despite receiving an offer from his new bestie Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings) to come live with him at Storm’s End and another from a grieving Maekar to continue training Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) as a squire at Summerhall—a proposal Maekar puts forward in hopes Duncan’s guidance will help his youngest son avoid the character failings of his two eldest—a dejected Dunk feels his presence brings only pain and suffering to those around him, and declines both propositions. He later reconsiders and comes back to Maekar with his own suggestion: Dunk will keep Egg on as his squire, but Egg will travel alongside Dunk as a hedge knight, not live the pampered life of a prince. Maekar refuses, earning a cutting rebuttal from Dunk about the royal upbringing that turned Daeron (Henry Ashton) into a drunken coward and Aerion into an arrogant and cruel madman.Then, as Dunk is preparing to head off on his own, Egg shows up claiming his father has in fact decided to allow him to accompany Dunk on his adventures. But in a twist on Martin’s source material, the closing scene of the finale reveals Egg chose to leave with Dunk without ever actually receiving Maekar’s permission. As for the impact that switch-up will have on how A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms adapts The Sworn Sword, the second installment in Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novella series, we’ll likely have to wait a bit to find out in Season 2.However, the good news is that, according to Parker, his aim is for the series to follow Dunk and Egg down the long and winding road Martin has laid out for the entirety of their lives—both in his three existing novellas and an additional 12 outlines for still unpublished tales.“Even though we don’t have the ins and outs of every story, we know canonically the major beats of Dunk and Egg throughout their lives. So we wouldn’t necessarily run into the same trouble as [Game of Thrones] did,” Parker told the Hollywood Reporter. “These stories take them all the way through their lives. Some of these are just a paragraph, but they give you a sense of where they’re going to go and the people who come back in and out of the story.”Although Parker admitted HBO’s current plan seems to be for the show to run for just three seasons, he explained he personally would be game to continue the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms saga up through—spoiler alert—Egg’s eventual coronation as King Aegon V “The Unlikely” Targaryen, and beyond. “I would do 12 of these,” he said. “I would do four now, then four more 10 years from now, and then four more 10 years after that—take them all the way through their lives.”