A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Dunk is directly linked to beloved Game of Thrones character

Legendary Westeros knight Ser Duncan the Tall is the star of HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and one of Game of Thrones’ most popular characters is his ancestor.  

We’re talking about Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie), a fan-favorite Game of Thrones character known for her unwavering honor and towering height. 

While they’re both noble characters, excellent fighters, and tall, there’s more connecting them than those shared attributes – Dunk is officially Brienne’s ancestor. 

How is Brienne related to Dunk?

The first bit of evidence was in the fourth book, A Feast for Crows, when Brienne gets her shield painted:

“It was more a picture than a proper coat of arms, and the sight of it took her back through the long years, to the cool dark of her father’s armory. She remembered how she’d run her fingertips across the cracked and fading paint, over the green leaves of the tree, and along the path of the falling star.” 

Ser Duncan’s sigil is a falling star above an elm tree, so somehow, his shield ended up at Evenfall Hall, Brienne’s home. Then, in A Feast for Crows, Brienne has her shield painted with the same sigil.

At a book signing in 2005, George R.R. Martin confirmed that one of Dunk’s descendants is in the books and “there’s a pretty strong hint” in A Feast for Crows. This is almost certainly the hint. 

Then, at Balticon in 2016, a fan asked Martin if we’d ever learn how Brienne descends from Dunk. “Eventually,” he replied. “All will be revealed in time.”

As mentioned in Game of Thrones, Dunk becomes one of the most famous Kingsguard knights in Westerosi history, but they’re sworn to an oath of celibacy. We don’t know what he was up to before swearing the vow, so Brienne’s ancestor was likely born before he joined the Kingsguard. 

Dunk’s actor, Peter Claffey, said Christie’s performance inspired him. “I was a huge fan of the original series, and I loved Gwendoline Christie as Brienne. She was amazing, and there are a lot of aspects to Dunk’s character that she shares.

“She’s very chivalrous. She wants to do what’s right. She just wants to be a knight, and she has the added complication of trying to be a knight who was a lady in Westeros. So she has a much harder job than Dunk did. But there is definite likeness.”

Christie and Dexter Sol Ansell, who plays Egg, worked together on 2024’s Robin and the Hoods, and Claffey also joked with him, “You got work with my granddaughter!”

We can expect to learn much more about Brienne’s connection to Dunk in The Winds of Winter, whenever it finally releases.