{"id":300408,"date":"2026-02-16T05:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T05:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/300408\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T05:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T05:06:08","slug":"a-knight-of-the-seven-kingdoms-episode-5-delivers-classic-game-of-thrones-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/300408\/","title":{"rendered":"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Episode 5 delivers classic Game of Thrones deaths."},"content":{"rendered":"

After each episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Slate writers will gather to answer a crucial question: Who is the worst person in Westeros<\/a>? This week, senior staff writer Rebecca Onion and staff writer Nadira Goffe answer the call.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Onion: Nadira! We have a cathartic penultimate episode this week, as the Trial of Seven, which our main guy Dunk is facing as a result of his having defended the puppeteer Tanselle from the wrath of Aerion Targaryen, has gone from concept to actuality. Dunk has managed to gather his team of seven<\/a> with the help of his squire Egg, and now we will see how this hedge knight who has seen no combat is going to fare in, well, combat.<\/p>\n

Because most of the violent deeds in the episode take place in the ring, where they\u2019re sanctioned by the bloodthirsty morality that governs Westeros, it\u2019s a little hard to assign blame to the combatants\u2014even Aerion<\/a>, that perennial brat. But when Dunk blacks out on the field after having been stuck with a spear, the writers grab the chance to stick in a little flashback to Dunk\u2019s origins in Flea Bottom, and we get a few candidates for this week\u2019s Worst Person in Westeros.<\/p>\n

Younger Dunk (Bamber Todd), as a tween, has crept out to a battlefield near King\u2019s Landing, along with his friend Rafe (Chloe Lea), and they are grabbing whatever they can from the corpses of the highborn. As Dunk tries to mercy-kill a red-bearded man who\u2019s desperately wounded, Rafe stops him, pointing out that they could ransom him if they can get him out alive. Instead of the sweet oblivion of death, this poor guy gets to experience the misery of two 11-year-olds trying to drag him out from underneath his horse. Serious question: Is Rafe the Worst Person in Westeros for this?<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

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Nadira Goffe: She\u2019s certainly a little irritating\u2014personally, I struggle with the trope of the hardened youth who can\u2019t stop harping on the stupidity of others\u2014but I don\u2019t know if we can call her the worst of the bunch this week. She may order young Dunk to do a deeply unkind thing, but it comes from a place of need, of poverty, not from a place of targeted malice. This point is driven home when the pair return to Flea Bottom\u2014a place Rafe smartly assesses as to \u201cfull up on people hurtin\u2019,\u201d making it \u201ctinder waiting to catch\u201d\u2014and we get a glimpse of their way of life. The two have been on their own, either swindling or thieving or cashing in on luck (i.e., coming upon tombs of tradable goods) to amass a small amount of coin that is at constant threat of being stolen by bullies, namely a City Watchman named Alester (Edward Davis). Their plan is to make enough money to escape to the Free Cities\u2014young Dunk has a bleak hesitation about this, wondering if \u201cit\u2019s all shit, every place\u201d\u2014but, when Rafe gets caught by the Gold Cloak after a few too many encounters, the interaction proves fatal.<\/p>\n

I think Alester is certainly a candidate for worst of the week, and we should definitely return to him. But first, let\u2019s air out some more choices, both obvious and less so. First, I don\u2019t think Aerion gets away scot-free just because he is brutalized in battle\u2014after all, this is a battle of his making! And one that unnecessarily claims multiple lives because he was too cowardly to face Dunk on his own and instead called for this needless Trial of Seven. But crowning him the villain again and again would be boring (as would crowning Dunk hero).<\/p>\n

There are a few others who might be good candidates for Best Person in Westeros this week. There\u2019s Ser Arlan, who, as shown in Dunk\u2019s origin story, defends the lad against the Gold Cloaks after they kill Rafe and then lets him squire for him. But, though he saves Dunk\u2019s life, he\u2019s more of a drunk and absent father figure than someone truly worthy of adoration. And then there\u2019s Baelor Targaryen, who goes against his family to support Dunk during the Trial, and, in the big tragedy of this episode, winds up dying from a grisly head injury that claims a significant part of his brain. This certainly puts Dunk, who was triumphant for what felt like a mere second, in the hot seat, since it\u2019s for his sake that the noble heir to the Iron Throne loses his life.<\/p>\n

I guess my question for you, Rebecca, is: Were any of these \u201cgood\u201d guys more good this week than the bad guys were bad?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Onion: I will always love Baelor Targaryen, and be sad that he died for such a silly reason\u2014even as I recognize that \u201cthe guy seems mostly fine until they take off his helmet and his occipital lobe comes away with it\u201d is a classic bait-and-switch Game of Thrones death, hall-of-fame stuff for George R.R. Martin. But I\u2019d argue that Baelor\u2019s good deed actually belongs to the previous episode<\/a>, when he first said he\u2019d stand up for Dunk, and that his death itself is morally meaningless. As for Ser Arlan, although he does rescue Dunk out of some drunken charitable impulse, he also leaves the boy shivering huddled up on moss for a while after Dunk has followed him out of the city, icing him out before he finally lets him take his place as squire.<\/p>\n

No, I think the City Watchman, Alester, who robs two little kids of their silver and then slits one of their throats in front of the other\u2014spattering gore on Dunk\u2019s face and setting up a situation where he has to watch his only friend slowly choke on her blood\u2014is the worst this week. As Game of Thrones comportment goes, what he does is not too complex, and we don\u2019t understand his motivations or know much about his life. But this is still, I think we must concur, very bad!<\/p>\n

Goffe: Yeah, it\u2019s safe to say that Alester\u2019s actions in this episode are unforgivable. And I can definitely agree that what he does this week is more bad than the good deeds of others are good. Congrats, random Gold Cloak of little importance: You\u2019re our Worst Person in Westeros!<\/p>\n

Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After each episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Slate writers will gather to answer a crucial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,6755,61,60,282,142250],"class_list":["post-300408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv","tag-worst-person-in-westeros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}