By 
The following contains spoilers for the A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS episode 2 and details from the larger A Song of Ice and Fire canon.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Ser Duncan the Tall is pretty tall.
Described as an inch shy of seven feet in George R.R. Martin‘s “Tales of Dunk and Egg” novellas and played by 6’5″ actor Peter Claffey, the hedge knight known as “Dunk” tends to tower over most in Westeros. Through the first two episodes of Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Dunk’s height has become a bit of a running joke with the lovable galoot having not yet met a door frame he didn’t want to accidentally crash his head into.
Longtime readers of Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” books, however, will know that Dunk is far from the only preternaturally prominent individual in the Seven Kingdoms. In addition to the literal giants that populate the far north beyond the Wall, the continent is home to altitudinous folks like the 6’6″ King Robert I, the 7’1″ Hodor, and even the titanic 8’0″ Gregor “The Mountain That Rides” Clegane.
Westeros being home to so many unusually tall people naturally raises questions like “What’s in the water over there?” “Why aren’t the doorways bigger?” “And are any of these tall people related?” While answers to those first two questions remain elusive, we might actually be able to address the third. That’s because Martin has left some breadcrumbs suggesting that Ser Duncan the Tall does have an equally tall descendent. You might know her as Brienne of Tarth.
Born on the island of Tarth some 70 years after A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms takes place, Brienne has many unambiguously heroic traits that made her a Game of Thrones favorite. Like a certain Ser Duncan before her, Brienne takes chivalry and her obligation as a warrior far more seriously than her contemporaries. In fact, one might argue that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is named after the Thrones episode “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” in which Brienne takes her knightly vows. She’s also unusually statuesque for a woman of Westeros (or really for anyone on a Medieval diet), coming in at well over six feet tall and played by the 6’3″ actress Gwendoline Christie. For Dunk actor Peter Claffey, Dunk and Brienne’s shared height and values alone is compelling enough to confirm some sort of familial connection.
“[Martin] hasn’t confirmed it to me, but yeah I think there’s probably some lineage, for sure,” Claffey tells Den of Geek. “There are a lot of commonalities between Brienne and Dunk. They have a very similar sort of moral compass, similar sort of demeanor, similar sort of almost vulnerability and gullibility with speaking and interacting with people. I absolutely loved Brienne and Gwendoline Christie in the show. I hope I get to meet her some time, it would be so cool.”
The evidence for Brienne being a descendent of Ser Duncan the Tall goes beyond the cosmetic. In one of Brienne’s chapters in the book A Feast for Crows, she recalls coming across a shield adorned with a sigil depicting an elm tree and a falling star in her father’s armory. That should sound familiar to those who just watched A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms episode 2. In that installment, Dunk must choose a new sigil for himself since he is not a blood relation to the man who knighted him, Ser Arlan of Pennytree.
With his squire Egg’s help, Dunk requests that a Dornish painter named Tanselle (Tanzyn Crawford) craft him a sigil featuring “an elm tree, a big one like the one by the river. Brown trunk and green branches. But with a shooting star above.” The similarities between Dunk’s sigil and the sigil found in Brienne’s Evenfall castle home on Tarth isn’t so much of a “hint” that the two are related as it is an outright confirmation. Martin himself agreed, affirming Brienne and Dunk’s familial connection in 2016.
But if Ser Duncan is Brienne of Tarth’s grandfather or great-grandfather then who is her grandmother or great-grandmother? Well, would you believe that the aforementioned Dornish painter named Tanselle is another one of Westeros’ Very Tall Individuals? And would you believe that Ser Duncan the Tall appears to be absolutely smitten with her? Sure, Dunk displays absolutely zero rizz when interacting with “Tanselle-Too-Tall” but his story is far from finished. And Martin has entrusted A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner Ira Parker with the blueprints to many future Dunk and Egg stories. It’s entirely possible that Tanselle will be revealed to be a part of Brienne of Tarth’s family history as well. The actress who plays her certainly hopes so.
“Everybody’s so connected and intertwined in this show, so I mean, that would be my dream, honestly,” Crawford says. “Gwendoline Christie, oh gosh, she’s so amazing. I’d love to carry on the tall girl legacy. That’s my honor.”
New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premiere Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max, culminating with the finale on February 22.
The post Does A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Explain Brienne of Tarth’s Ancestry? appeared first on Den of Geek.
