A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 3 features a huge reveal that changes everything for the show’s villain Prince Aerion, as star Finn Bennett has explained.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms takes place between the events of House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, meaning there’s connective tissue with both shows.
Based on George R.R. Martin’s ‘Tales of Dunk and Egg’ novellas, Peter Claffey plays knight Ser Duncan the Tall, while Dexter Sol Ansell is his young squire, who is simply known as Egg in the show’s first two episodes.
But at the end of Episode 3, we learn who he really is, meaning SPOILERS AHEAD as we break it all down, and learn what stars Ansell and Bennett think about the reveal.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms twist explained
There’s a clue to Egg’s true identity midway through Episode 3 – appropriately titled ‘The Squire’ – when a fortune teller says: “You shall be king,” to the boy, followed by the slightly more disturbing “and die in a hot fire, and worms shall feed upon your ashes, and all who know you shall rejoice in your dying.”
Dunk laughs it off, but a clearly concerned Egg demands “Why would she say that?”
We learn why in the episode’s final scene, when Prince Aerion Targaryen attacks Dunk, and is about to smash his teeth, at which point Egg appears and demands he stop.
“No! Don’t touch him!” comes the order from Egg, and when Dunk warns that the guards will hurt him, the boy says: “No they won’t, and if they do, they’ll have to answer to my father!”
“You impudent little rat. What’s happened to your hair?” asks Aerion, to which bald Egg responds: “I cut it off brother, I didn’t want to look like you.”
And there we have it: Egg is short for Aegon, and the boy is Prince Aegon V Targaryen, younger brother of Aerion, and son of Prince Maekar
How Dexter Sol Ansell reacted to Egg’s big moment
“When I was reading the scripts and looking into it, I found out that I was gonna be a Targaryen, and my first thought was, ‘Who’s a Targaryen? What’s a Targaryen? What’s this random name?'” Ansell told EW about the big twist. “Then my parents told me everything. It was really cool to find out that I was a royal.”
As for what it’s like actually being a Targeryen, he said: “It feels cool. Feels like I’m a dragon. I just wanna jump out my window and go ‘wee!’ and breathe fire. Yeah, it feels exciting to be a Targaryen. I mean, I don’t know much about Game of Thrones because I’ve never watched it, but I think Targaryen’s the best house, in my opinion.”
When asked about what’s next for his character, Ansell said: “Dunk doesn’t really like Egg at this point, so he’s quite mad with him. He hates him at this point. Egg doesn’t know what to do.
“He knew this day would come, but he’s upset. He thinks he’s never gonna be with Dunk ever again, and he thinks he’s lost his only chance and he’s gonna have to go back with the Targaryens now and he’s gonna be kept away so he never escapes again.”
Finn Bennett on how reveal raises the stakes for Aerion
When asked by The Hollywood Reporter about the big reveal, Aerion actor Finn Bennett said: “I think it really changes things in a very exciting way for Aerion. Like I said, he comes into this tournament very bored. They shouldn’t be here. He knows it’s embarrassing.
“When Dunk seizes him on stage and beats him up, he’s kind of got an excuse now to make an example of somebody. This guy stood up to authority, and he’s going to make a f*cking example of him.
“And then when he says to Dunk, ‘If you’ve got nothing more to say,’ and Dunk doesn’t say anything, it’s boring again. You know? It’s like, ‘Come on man, you’ve made your point. Keep going! Dive deeper!’ And it’s all a bit, ‘Well, I’ll just punish this guy in front of everybody, and we’ll move on.’
“And then, when Egg bursts into the tent, the stakes are raised again. It’s suddenly really exciting for Aerion. He has an excuse to do something big and dramatic.”
'Instead of 6 missiles, there are only 2' — Ukraine's Air Force reveals dire air defense shortage