With the recent release of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' first episode, fans are already clamoring for more of Ser Duncan the Tall. Played by Peter Claffey, the new series tells the story of the legendary hero of Westeros from his days as a hedge knight, wandering the Seven Kingdoms with his young squire Egg.
George R.R. Martin recounts Dunk and Egg's tales in their own novellas. To date, he's published three, "The Hedge Knight," "The Sworn Sword," and "The Mystery Knight," which have been combined into a collection titled A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Set around 100 years before Martin's main series, A Song of Ice and Fire, these stories take on a different side of Westeros, utilizing a much lighter tone and focusing on a smaller scale.
However, despite the isolated nature of Dunk and Egg's stories, eagle-eyed readers may have caught a secret appearance from Ser Duncan in A Dance with Dragons, the most recently published entry in A Song of Ice and Fire. Although Dunk is long dead by the time of the main series, Martin may have found a way to sneak him into the main series.
Bran's vision of a girl on her tiptoes
A Dance with Dragons finally takes Bran Stark into the cave of the Three-Eyed Crow. There, he meets Ser Brynden Rivers, a Targaryen bastard and a former Hand of the King and long lost Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, now living out his days among the Children of the Forest.
Brynden, now known as the Three-Eyed Crow, teaches Bran how to use his greensight abilities. As such, Brynden shows Bran how to access visions of the past. In the first of these dreams, he catches a glimpse of a younger version of his deceased father, Eddard Stark. From then, he receives a series of visions taking place in Winterfell in quick succession, including one of "a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tops of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor."
Dunk and Old Nan, Sitting in a Weirwood Tree
Given how quickly they are mentioned, Martin never explains who this brown-haired girl and tall knight are. Bran doesn't dwell on them, and they're ultimately an insignificant part of his vision.
However, many fans pieced together the identity of the tall knight. Based on his height, he's most likely Ser Duncan the Tall himself.
Some fans have even taken this a step further, and given that Bran's vision takes place in Winterfell, the brown-haired girl could likely have been an important figure throughout the North. Namely, some readers theorize that this girl could have been a young Old Nan, probably not going by that name in her youth.
Ser Duncan the Tall and the She-Wolves of Winterfell
If it truly is Ser Duncan in Bran's journey to the past, what would he possibly be doing in Winterfell? None of Dunk and Egg's stories to date take place in the North, so he's not as prominent a figure to the ancestral Stark home as other characters Bran sees, such as Ned, Benjen, and Lyanna Stark.
However, one of Martin's forthcoming Dunk and Egg novellas, tentatively titled "The She-Wolves of Winterfell," will take place in, as the title suggests, Winterfell. Perhaps Bran's vision takes place during this story, which would have brought Dunk north.
"The She-Wolves of Winterfell" is set to follow Dunk and Egg's encounter with the titular "She-Wolves," a group of Stark wives, widows, mothers, and grandmothers. Not much else is known about the story, though some fans have speculated about the identities of these she-wolves.
Some fans believe that Dunk meets a young Old Nan during the course of this future novella, and the two fall in love. Taking things a step further, many readers theorize that Dunk's union with Old Nan makes him an ancestor of Hodor. Bran's simple-minded, gentle giant companion is the great-grandson of Old Nan, and his extreme height would physically connect him to the aptly named Ser Duncan the Tall. In fact, the initial description of the knight believed to be Dunk in Bran's vision describes him as "as tall as Hodor," establishing a further connection between Dunk and his possible descendant.
Though "The She-Wolves of Winterfell" is currently unpublished, Martin has recently expressed a desire to write and publish more Dunk and Egg novellas, meaning it could be on the horizon. Additionally, the story could make for a fascinating future season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, especially since Martin has given showrunner Ira Parker the outlines for several future Dunk and Egg adventures.
Make sure to follow along with Dunk and Egg's small screen story by catching A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms when it airs Sundays at 10:00 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.