Who Are Dunk and Egg? A Guide to the Characters Behind the New Series

When “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” starts, you’re introduced to two guys who become the emotional core of everything that follows. On the surface, they seem simple enough: a big, gentle knight and a smart kid with red hair. But as the series unfolds, you begin to understand that there’s so much more to both of them than initial appearances suggest. Their individual stories are interesting, but it’s really the dynamic between them — the friendship that develops as they travel through Westeros together — that makes the whole thing sing.

Let’s dive into who Dunk and Egg really are, where they come from, and why they matter so much to the overall story of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Ser Duncan the Tall: The Hedge Knight With a Heart

Ser Duncan is probably the most straightforward character you’ll meet in this series, and that’s not a criticism. He’s a big guy — seriously, he’s described as being enormous, tall enough that he has to duck through doorways and crouch to fit in many of the spaces he encounters. But his size is almost beside the point when it comes to understanding who he is as a person. What defines Dunk is his fundamental decency.

He wasn’t born into nobility. His father was a blacksmith, a working man. Duncan learned to fight and trained himself to become a knight through determination and hard work rather than through birthright or fancy education. This makes him an outsider in a world where your family name and connections mean almost everything. He’s what the people of Westeros call a hedge knight, which is basically code for a knight who has no lands, no house, and no reliable income. He travels from place to place, fighting in tournaments, hiring himself out for whatever work comes along, trying to earn enough coin to survive another day.

The thing about Dunk is that despite this humble background, despite having very little, he has an incredibly strong moral compass. He believes in honor. He believes that your word means something. He believes that you should protect those who can’t protect themselves. These aren’t cynical positions adopted for strategic advantage in the world of Westeros — they’re genuine beliefs that Dunk acts on, even when doing so costs him.

When we first meet Dunk, he’s alone. We learn that his previous master and mentor, a knight named Ser Arlan of Pennytree, has just died. Dunk inherited his armor and his sword, and now he’s trying to figure out how to survive on his own. He’s grieving, he’s uncertain, and he’s more vulnerable than he’d like to admit. He wants to be a good knight. He wants to do right by people. But he’s also very aware that he doesn’t quite fit in, that people don’t always take him seriously because of where he comes from, and that his ideals sometimes put him at odds with the way the world actually works.

Dunk isn’t intellectually gifted. He’s not going to outwit anyone with clever words. He’s not ambitious in the way that many knights are — he’s not maneuvering to gain power or influence or land. He just wants to be good at what he does and to live according to his principles. But that simplicity is actually his greatest strength. He’s genuine in a world full of people pretending to be something they’re not. He’s consistent in a world of shifting alliances and betrayals.

What makes Dunk really interesting as a character is that despite his good intentions, he’s not invincible, and he’s not right about everything. He makes mistakes. He’s sometimes too trusting. His strength and his willingness to fight can get him into situations that his brain alone couldn’t have predicted. He struggles with the politics and complexity of noble life, and he’s often bewildered by people’s motivations and schemes. Watching him navigate a world that’s far more complicated than anything his simple, honest background has prepared him for is one of the great pleasures of the series.

Egg: The Boy With a Secret

The second person you meet is Egg, a young boy with red hair who crosses paths with Dunk early in the story. Egg presents himself as just another orphan or runaway kid, one of many boys wandering the roads looking for work and food. He’s clever, he’s quick-witted, and he’s clearly intelligent beyond his years. He can read and write, which is unusual for someone of his apparent station. He’s knowledgeable about all sorts of things that a random street kid probably shouldn’t be.

Here’s where I have to be a bit careful with what I tell you, because part of the fun of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is discovering who Egg really is. Let’s just say that everything about him is not quite what it seems. His real name isn’t Egg, and his past is considerably more complicated and significant than a simple orphan story. But what’s beautiful about the character is that none of this changes the fundamental dynamic between him and Dunk. Once you learn who Egg really is, it recontextualizes everything you’ve seen, but it doesn’t invalidate any of the genuine emotion or friendship that has developed between them.

Egg is idealistic. He’s young enough that he still believes in the possibility of change, that things can be different, that good intentions might actually matter in the world. He’s been educated in ways that Dunk hasn’t, he knows things about history and politics and the various houses of Westeros. But he’s also young, sometimes naive, occasionally reckless. He doesn’t always understand why Dunk is cautious about certain things, why his big friend sometimes pulls back from situations that Egg thinks they should charge into.

The dynamic between Dunk and Egg works because they complement each other perfectly. Dunk is experienced, cautious, strong, and driven by principle. Egg is clever, idealistic, quick to see possibilities, and relatively fearless. Dunk protects Egg physically and emotionally. Egg helps Dunk understand a world that would otherwise confuse him. They teach each other. They grow through their relationship with each other.

What’s remarkable about Egg as a character is that despite being young, despite sometimes being reckless or naive, he’s never written as incompetent or useless. He’s not a burden that Dunk has to carry. Rather, Egg is capable and interesting in his own right. He contributes to their adventures. He saves Dunk’s life in his own ways. The show doesn’t make him a damsel in distress or a helpless child that Dunk has to look after out of obligation. It’s clear that Dunk genuinely cares about Egg, and that Egg’s presence in Dunk’s life has made it better.

The Heart of the Series: Their Friendship

What really makes “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” work is the genuine warmth of the relationship between these two characters. This isn’t a relationship built on power dynamics or political maneuvering or mutual advantage, the way so many relationships in Game of Thrones were. It’s a real friendship between two people who care about each other, who look out for each other, and who are willing to take risks to protect each other.

This might sound simple, and in some ways it is, but in the context of George R.R. Martin’s world, it’s actually quite remarkable. Game of Thrones trained us to be cynical about relationships. We learned to assume that everyone had an ulterior motive, that trust was always dangerous, that caring about someone made you vulnerable in a way that would eventually be exploited. “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” rejects that cynicism. It says that people can be genuinely good to each other, that friendship can be authentic, that caring about someone is a strength rather than a weakness.

The intimacy between Dunk and Egg grows naturally over the course of the series. They don’t have to talk about their feelings or have big emotional scenes where they declare their bond. Instead, it’s shown in small moments: the way Dunk notices what Egg needs before he asks for it, the way Egg worries about Dunk, the way they develop inside jokes and shared understandings. They know each other. They trust each other. And that trust is tested throughout the series in various ways, but it always holds.

This relationship is also complicated in interesting ways. There are moments where Dunk has to make decisions that put him in conflict with Egg’s wishes. There are situations where their values or their goals don’t align perfectly. There are times when Dunk worries that he’s not good enough to be the kind of friend or mentor that Egg deserves. But these complications make the relationship feel more real, not less. It’s not a perfect friendship, but it’s an honest one.

Character Growth and Development

Over the course of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” both of these characters grow and change. Dunk begins to see himself differently as he encounters people who believe in him and his potential in ways that he’s never quite believed in himself. He starts to understand that his size, his strength, and his basic decency can make a real difference in the world. He becomes more confident without losing his humility.

Egg, meanwhile, has to grapple with the reality of who he is and what his place in the world means. He has to reconcile his idealism with the complicated realities of power and responsibility. He learns from Dunk, but he’s also learning about himself and what he’s capable of. The journey he’s on is partly about external adventures, but it’s also deeply internal.

Why They Matter

Dunk and Egg matter because they remind us why we care about people in the first place. In a world full of plots and schemes and betrayals, they stand out as people who are fundamentally honest with each other. Their story is about loyalty, growth, and the transformative power of genuine human connection. They’re the reason “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” works as a story — not because of the medieval fantasy setting or the connection to the Game of Thrones universe, but because of these two characters and what they mean to each other.

By the end of the series, you won’t just be watching Dunk and Egg have adventures. You’ll be deeply invested in what happens to them, in how they grow, and in the continuation of their journey together. That’s the real magic of these characters.