How A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms Improves One Tired Genre Trope

Winter is coming, and so are spoilers for the series premiere of "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms."

What's in a name, anyway? In "The Lord of the Rings," one's name means everything; in fact, you could argue that Frodo Baggins' surname traveling all the way from the Shire to Mordor kicks off the entire saga in the first place. In mythic stories like "Star Wars," the names of characters like Darth Vader in the original trilogy or Rey in the sequel films similarly make up core aspects of their identity. Even in "Game of Thrones," the true identity of Kit Harington's Jon Snow ends up being one of the most significant reveals in the entire series. Indeed, genre fiction tends to put an enormous amount of weight on this most fundamental of character traits, but this takes on even greater meaning in "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms."

HBO's new show differentiates itself from the rest of the franchise through its main hero: a total nobody named Dunk (Peter Claffey). The hedge knight begins this tale without even the benefit of a family house that anyone's ever heard of, forced to trudge through the countryside by his given name — one that everyone seems to dismiss as unbefitting of a knight. Moreover, wherever Dunk turns, it seems as if the highest born to the lowliest smallfolk have something to say about his name, from the lordly Ser Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings) all the way to his would-be squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell).

By the end of the premiere, the towering figure borrows from both Lyonel and Egg to settle on his chosen title, Ser Duncan the Tall. By doing so, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" also cleverly inverts the otherwise tired trope of characters' names getting origin stories.

Origin stories always run the risk of over-explaining or dragging things out to diminishing returns. After all, there's a reason why that "surf Dracula" meme took off as much as it did a few years back. In one of the more annoying trends in recent memory, certain ones have felt the need to come up with some sort of reason behind something as basic as a name. The most egregious example of this would probably be "Solo: A Star Wars Story," which took it upon itself to reveal why Chewbacca is called Chewie (you know, in case we couldn't put that together ourselves) while also dropping the bomb on us that Han Solo goes by that moniker because, well, he's a loner. Seriously. We still can't believe that happened.

With the premiere of "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," not even the biggest diehard fans would've anticipated this prequel taking a similar approach to the title of Ser Duncan the Tall. There's no instance of this in author George R.R. Martin's original novella "The Hedge Knight," to be sure. Instead, when questioned by Egg early in the text, our hedge knight simply goes along with his idea that Dunk must be short for "Duncan" and, well, he's always been tall. In the adaptation, this is instead subtly layered into the episode all along. When he first meets Lyonel in his pavilion, the highborn knight urges him to stop cowering behind anonymity and embrace the idea of allowing himself to "Be tall!" And when confronted by Egg in the final scene, his innocent suggestion of "Duncan" puts the final piece of the puzzle in place.

In "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," a name isn't merely a name — it's a reflection of who you are. That's why it's only fitting that Dunk's supporting cast plays such a large role in providing him his moniker. Lyonel Baratheon already looms large as a figure of note in this adventure (much earlier than he does in the novella), making it all the more rewarding that his pep talk clearly has an effect on our protagonist. Meanwhile, even the unassuming Raymun Fossoway (Shaun Thomas) gets in on the fun, jokingly referring to Dunk as "Halfman" and inadvertently revealing that Dunk doesn't take too kindly to just any nickname ... especially ones poking fun at his size. That's probably why both the novella and the show allow Egg to be the one to suggest the respectable name of Duncan, as the one supporting character who goes on to play the biggest role in the story moving forward.

Granted, creator and writer Ira Parker sees fit to undercut Ser Duncan the Tall's stirring moment (again, much like the novella does) by having Egg shoot back with, "Never heard of him." That one interaction captures the tone of this unassuming tale, where commoners like Dunk have very little in the way of options in this merciless world — but, nevertheless, go through life with their heads held high and their hearts set on the loftiest of goals. Compared to "Game of Thrones" or "House of the Dragon," where we almost exclusively follow major figures destined for greatness, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" is almost radical in its ground-level aims ... Dunk's name included.

New episodes of "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" hit HBO and HBO Max every Sunday.