‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’: Why Baelor Fights for Dunk & Egg, Explained by Bertie Carvel

When Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) cried, “Are there no true knights among you?!” to the Ashford tournament crowd, Prince Baelor Targaryen (Bertie Carvel), heir to the Iron Throne, answered the call. The first trial of seven in 100 years in Westeros takes place in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1. Episode 5 (of six) airs this Sunday, February 15, on HBO.

We asked Carvel why Baelor is risking life and limb to fight for the hedge knight and against his own royal family in this infamous battle from George R.R. Martin‘s Dunk and Egg novellas.

Baelor is Egg’s (Dexter Sol Ansell) uncle. The young boy’s real name is Prince Aegon Targaryen. His father is Baelor’s younger brother, Maekar (Sam Spruell). In Episode 4, one of Egg’s older brothers — the cruelest one, Aerion (Finn Bennett) — demanded a trial of seven as his form of justice after Dunk attacked him for snapping Tanselle’s (Tanzyn Crawford) finger in half.

Aerion is using this ordeal with Dunk (one he caused) to set an example of the power and might of the House of the Dragon to the smallfolk of Westeros. The royal family’s public perception has deteriorated in the realm during this time period (around 100 years before the plot of Game of Thrones), and they’re at the Ashford tournament to help improve their standing among their people. When it came time to pick sides for the trial, Maekar chose Aerion’s, and Baelor chose Dunk’s.

Baelor loves Maekar deeply and completely understands why he’s fighting in the trial on Aerion’s side, Carvel tells TV Insider. He explains why Baelor chose to fight for Dunk, and how the decision is connected to Egg as the season heads into its most pivotal episode yet.

Steffan Hill / HBO

“One of the things I like about this story is that it matters what people do from one minute to the next,” Carvel explains. “You don’t come out of the womb predetermined to be good, bad, or ugly. Goodness is as goodness does. When you’re talking with a young boy or girl, the potential for them to be good Aegon or bad Aegon is at its height. It matters when you’re talking to children, I think that’s probably what he thinks. [Baelor] can see in the example of his brothers what [Egg] might become, and I think, has hope for that boy and wants to set a good example.”

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Baelor isn’t predestined to defy Targaryen stereotypes, but Dunk inspires him to.

“I’ve heard a lot today about Baelor being a good man, and that’s not true until it is,” Carvel says. “The story is about the fact that you decide from one moment to the next whether you’re going to do the right thing. And what makes the story moving and heroic is when people choose to do the right thing in spite of what they might choose. That seems to me to be an important story to tell right now in a darkening world.”

“I want to see stories about people who choose to do the right thing when they might as well not,” he continues. “You want to believe that Baelor might just as well kill you as protect you, and that is true. He might. And he has. He’s won a famous battle, the Hammer and the Anvil, they called Baelor and his brother. These two men have killed, and there is a familial cruelty there that’s available to Baelor. That he chooses to do something we regard as heroic is what happens, but it happens in spite of what might happen. And I find that thrilling.”

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Sundays, 10/9c, HBO, Streaming on HBO Max