Fans of Game of Thrones and especially House of the Dragon might wonder what business a Targaryen has talking about what makes a hero. HBO’s newest George R.R. Martin series introduces some platinum blonde villains of its own, but it also shows us that not all Targaryens are baddies. That includes Baelor Targaryen, a surprisingly calming presence among the tournament chaos at Ashford, where A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms takes place.
Baelor (Bertie Carvel) crosses paths with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ main character, hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey). He’s intimidating as hell, but he’s kind—and provides an important contrast to the more troublesome Targaryens that Dunk also meets.
Speaking at a recent A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms press conference attended by io9, Carvel dug into the show’s theming around unconventional heroics. A lot of that springs from Dunk, but we see it in other characters too. And Carvel made some intriguing parallels between the show’s fanciful setting and the world we’re all trudging through on a daily basis.
“It does seem to be the question at the heart of the whole thing: whether it’s possible to do the right thing and whether there’s a space for that,” Carvel said. “And I think it’s Dunk, really, who’s asking that. We were watching it again the other night when we attended the premiere; it really struck me that he himself is asking all the way through whether it’s a sort of naive action to follow honor. Is he just kind of kidding himself with this dream of knighthood? There’s a possibility that the cynicism will kind of overwhelm him, and I find that very relatable in our own world.”
Carvel continued. “I think we’re probably all asking ourselves that all the time and whether you can find the moral courage to do the right thing, whether it feels like a wasted effort. That’s why it’s good television; it’s good storytelling, and I think a story that we kind of have a real thirst for right now. Yeah, in a sort of darkening world—thanks, [showrunner] Ira [Parker]—we need these stories. It’s good to be part of that.”
Later at the same press conference, Carvel elaborated on what it truly means to be a hero.
“[A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms] is sort of inviting us all to ask ourselves whether we can be a hero or what that would mean for us, whether it’s ludicrous and hubristic [or] naive to imagine that one can do heroic deeds. I guess I read that in the character of Dunk—that he dreams of, as we all did as children, doing heroic deeds, and then he’s reminded of his humanity, his mortality, his limitations, and so on. He looks around him, and he sees knights who seem more capable and grander. And that’s why it’s relatable, and I think that’s why it is a heroic story—because it’s grounded in something quite humane and mortal.”
“I think it would be good if we would all ask ourselves the question [of] what it would mean to be more heroic. I think people, all the time, do things, ordinary things that are deeply heroic actually, and the most heroism you’ll see is in just ordinary lives; it doesn’t have to be something grand. And the sum total of those things can add up to a world still existing in 2027.”
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms hits HBO and HBO Max January 18.
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