Warning: The following contains spoilers of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
We’re now midway through season one of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, with episode three, “The Squire”, dropping a major bombshell in its finale: Egg was never just a squire to hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall – he was the missing Prince Aegon Targaryen all along.
Though episode three frames its final minutes as a shocking reveal, the fact is Egg has been dropping clues to his identity since his first scene in episode one, “The Hedge Knight”. Though readers of George R. R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg already knew who Egg was before the series debut, the HBO series had still been dropping clues to his identity for casual fans to pick up on. Some were subtle, and others were plain obvious.
Photo: Steffan Hill/HBO
Beginning with episode one, the first subtle clue appeared when Ser Duncan (“Dunk”) arrived at the inn on his way to Ashford Meadow. When he mistook Egg for the stable boy, the biggest clue that hinted he didn’t work at the inn was his accent. Rather than speak with a “commoner accent” like Dunk, Egg spoke with a very noticeable posh accent – an accent that’s associated with royalty and nobility, not stable boys.
The other subtle clue in that same scene is that Egg never confirmed that he was the stable boy and was later seen playing with Dunk’s horse and armor. The boy also insisted on being Dunk’s squire, suggesting he was running away from something. Once Dunk was inside the inn, there was only one other drunken customer present, and this customer paid his tab with a dragon coin bearing the symbol of House Targaryen. This also hinted at the identity of the customer, and by extension, the boy at the stable.
The biggest clue that Egg was a Targaryen all along was in the episode one finale when he arrived at Dunk’s camp near Ashford Meadow. Apart from Egg insisting on becoming Dunk’s squire, the latter told him he would take him back home in the morning, assuming he had run away from the inn. But the boy told him that his home was in King’s Landing, and this ultimately dissuaded Dunk from taking him home, not wanting to miss the tourney.
Photo: Steffan Hill/HBO
The other major clue Egg dropped in episode one’s finale was that he introduced himself as “Egg”, as in short for “Aegon”. However, this clue wouldn’t become obvious until episode two, “Hard Salt Beef”, when the other members of House Targaryen arrived at Ashford Meadow for the tourney. Once there, Egg kept hiding from them, and it soon became obvious why. Early in the episode, when Dunk was eavesdropping on a conversation between Baelor and Maekar Targaryen, they were discussing the latter’s missing sons, Daeron and Aegon.
For the eagle-eyed viewer, it wasn’t hard to start putting the pieces together and start realizing which missing son Egg likely was. Considering which other customer was also present at the inn besides Egg (who possessed dragon coins), fans could also start speculating that the other customer was likely Egg’s older brother and Maekar’s other missing son, Daeron. The final clue episode two dropped that strongly hinted at Egg’s true identity was his knowledge of all the more famous knights in Westeros. He was also surprised by Dunk expressing an interest in serving House Targaryen as a member of the Kingsguard.
By episode three, “The Squire”, all the clues were just buildup for the major reveal at the end of the episode. The biggest clue was Dunk and Egg watching the jousting match between Aerion Targaryen and another knight, with Egg shouting for the other knight to kill Aerion. Dunk was alarmed by this. But even after that tournament ended with Aerion killing both the other knight and his horse, Dunk still didn’t catch on to the boy’s true identity. Instead, he assumed Egg was traumatized by the whole spectacle, when in reality, he was upset about the deliberate nature of the killing. This strongly suggested Egg knew Aerion pretty well.
Photo: Steffan Hill/HBO
The other major clue that was dropped in episode three was Egg singing a song about the First Blackfyre Rebellion while sitting in a tree. In a later scene in episode three, a fortuneteller also predicted Dunk and Egg’s futures from the source material. In this case, the fortuneteller accurately predicted Dunk would become a respected knight in the realm, with Egg eventually becoming King Aegon V. But that wasn’t the only thing the fortuneteller predicted – she also predicted their future deaths in Tragedy of Summerhall, which alarmed Egg far more than Dunk.
The final minutes of episode three did the biggest buildup towards Egg’s identity, which was Raymun Fossoway telling Dunk about the reason Maekar didn’t show up for the tourney. Apart from confirming he had left to look for his missing sons Daeron and Aegon, Raymun also made a passing statement about Daeron: he’s known to get drunk a lot. When thinking back to the inn scene in episode one, there was only one person fitting that description, and that was the customer who paid his tab with a dragon coin.
Though episode three doesn’t confirm that the drunk man at the inn was Daeron (though it seems pretty obvious at this point), it does, however, end with Egg confirming his own identity as a means of protecting Dunk from his brother Aerion. While the episode ends here, it does promise more surprises for the remaining six episodes. One of those is the confirmation of Daeron himself, as the only other shoe left to drop.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms debuts new episodes every Sunday night on HBO and HBO Max at 10:00 PM EST.
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