Let’s dreamcast A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight

Steven Ogg as Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield

Serving alongside Dunk at Standfast is another hedge knight: Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield. Bennis is pretty much the opposite of Dunk in every way: he’s a cruel realist who is just as comfortable abandoning a cause as he is defending it, so long as he ends up saving his own skin. He’s crass, rude and avoids bathing at all costs.

What’s more, he’s one of the few characters in the novellas who actually knew Dunk from the time before Ashford Meadow, when our hero was still serving as a squire for Ser Arlan of Pennytree. Bennis was cruel even then, and had a habit of pinching Dunk when his master wasn’t looking, an obnoxious trait he repeats with both Egg and the conscripted townsfolk he’s trying to train to defend Standfast.

Bennis is the cause of a lot of the trouble in The Sworn Sword. When he and Dunk discover that Old Lord Eustace’s neighbor, a Lady nicknamed the Red Widow, has dammed off their stream in the middle of a drought, Bennis takes it upon himself to slice open the face of one of the workers as a “lesson.” He’s petty and evil in typical Song of Ice and Fire fashion, except he’s sworn to the same side as Dunk, which complicates things.

In short, Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield is exactly the sort of sadistic, crazy character that Steven Ogg excels at playing. Ogg’s two best-known characters, Simon in The Walking Dead and Trevor in Grand Theft Auto V, are right in that wheelhouse, so we know he could handle this role. He’s one of those actors who’s great at playing characters you love to hate, and Bennis of the Brown Shield is definitely that. Even when he’s a “good guy,” he’s still awful.

Bennis escapes at the end of The Sworn Sword, setting up an eventual confrontation between him and Dunk as a possible long-game moment for the series. Which means Steven Ogg could come back.