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

Jessica Parker Kennedy as Tanselle

Tanselle is one of the first characters Dunk meets upon his arrival at Ashford Meadow. The tourney grounds host an array of different businesses and merchants all plying trades. One of those businesses is a puppet show, and Tanselle is one of the puppeteers. She’s tall, only a head or so shorter than Dunk himself, so much that she tells him she was often teased as being “Tanselle Too-Tall.”

When Dunk is told he needs to have his shield painted with a new device (he cannot continue to use Arlan of Pennytree’s since he wasn’t his actual son), he takes the shield to Tanselle. She paints his elm-tree-and-shooting-star sigil, which is displayed so beautifully upon the cover of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

And it’s Tanselle who finds herself the target of Aerion Targaryen’s wrath when he takes the slaying of a wooden dragon in her puppet show as a treasonous act. Egg runs and retrieves Dunk, who comes to Tanselle’s rescue after Aerion has already broken one of her fingers.

Alas, this is the last time we’ve seen Tanselle in the story to date. She leaves Dunk’s shield behind, but she and the other puppeteers flee Ashford Meadow before Dunk’s subsequent trial for laying hands on one of the royal family. Nonetheless, her presence lingers over the series. Dunk often thinks of her, and it is partially a desire to search for her which drives Dunk and Egg to go adventuring off in Dorne.

Jessica Parker Kennedy is a fantastic actress with a serious ear for accents. She left a huge impression during her time as Maxine on Black Sails, where she played a whore who rose to control most of the island of Nassau. Tanselle is Dornish, and Parker Kennedy could also totally pull off the Dornish look.

All that said…the hitch is that she’s only 5’1”. As with Egg, a strong case could be made for Max going with an unknown. But if they did want to go with a known quantity, Jessica Parker Kennedy would make a great Tanselle.