'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' S1E02: Questions you might have about "Hard Salt Beef," answered
Dunk continues on his quest to be a worthy champion in Sunday's episode of the new "Game of Thrones" prequel.
What is hard salt beef, anyways? The title of this week’s episode refers to one of the only reliable forms of sustenance for a poor knight or soldier traveling in Westeros. The snack pretty much what it sounds like: a hardened chunk of salted/cured cow meat that can be carved off into strips.
As hedge knights, Ser Arlan and Dunk were not under the employ of any one House or noble family. Which means they often had nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat, and couldn’t afford shelter from the rain. While the Dunk’s flashbacks in this episode reveal how miserable and illness-inducing that life was, one of the bright spots in his memory is a time he shared some salt beef with Ser Arlan while they sat together under a tree in a rainstorm.
Dunk seems to take pride and comfort in remembering Ser Arlan’s resilience and determination, even when they had so little. The hard salt beef Dunk carves up to eat at the end of the episode brings the symbolism of toughness and frugality around again. The princes and lords at this tournament don’t have the grit that it takes to be a hedge knight — and Dunk is starting to realize it.
Why was that episode so short? “Hard Salt Beef” is 33 minutes long — a tad shorter than last week’s premiere (42 minutes). From here on out, 30ish minutes will be the average length for an episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, adding to the unique vibe of this particular Game of Thrones spinoff/prequel/successor show.
The singular point-of-view of Ser Duncan the Tall in George R.R. Martin’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms stories already sets the show apart from Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon. But TV watchers will now also pick up on how the structure of the episodes and season is designed to signal that your expectations should be more aligned with the signature comedy/drama (dare I say dramedy?) of a half-hour show. Especially one that airs after the more somber and serious and gut-wrenching dramas we’ve come to cherish in the iconic Sunday night time slot on HBO. That’s where Game of Thrones lived and died, along with Westworld and True Blood and The Wire and the like. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms isn’t trying to occupy that part of culture. Instead, the directive seems to be coming from the legacy of Insecure, while Industry takes the premiere drama time slot for this go-around.
Of course, fewer people tune into cable TV for appointment viewing nowadays. So if you’re only jumping into some streaming service or another (given how David Zaslav has bought, butchered, and resold the brand that was once HBO), maybe the change of length wasn’t as noticeable.
I thought you said this wasn’t about royals, so what are the Targaryens doing here? There are indeed a few important members of House Targaryen who are partaking in the tournament festivities, beginning with Prince Baelor — the man who granted Dunk permission to enter the jousting lists. Baelor is the eldest son of King Daeron II, and the named heir to the Iron Throne. He currently rules over Dragonstone, and also serves as Hand to his father. In Martin’s books, Dunk notes that Baelor and the two Kingsguard knights accompanying him are thought of as the most “puissant” (powerful) warriors of their age. Baelor has a son who is jousting in the tournaments (his name is Valarr, and you saw him towards the end of the episode).
Baelor is one of four brothers, and the second eldest (Maekar) has come with him to Castle Ashford. Maekar is the gruff, irreverent Targaryen who tried to kick Dunk out of their meeting room. He is father to three sons: Daeron, Aerion, and Aegon. As the background bickerings of the episode (along with creepy Gwen Ashford) revealed, Daeron and Aegon are missing. They were supposed to arrive at the castle either before or with the rest of the Targaryen party. Maekar’s middle son, Aerion, is the short-haired blonde who sneered at Dunk and mistook him for a stable boy or servant.
As evidenced within this episode, my promise of no royal perspectives being favored is holding true. There are no scenes that follow the Targaryens into their private chambers, and the only glimpses of their conversations come from Dunk’s lurking.
How does the tourney work, exactly? Great question, because the whole “run your horses at each other until everyone’s knocked down or dead strategy seems unclear when you’re watching the “game” unfold. Martin specifically wrote in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms that the way tournaments work during this fictional time in Westeros can vary from castle to castle.
“There were a dozen different forms a tourney might follow, according to the whim of the lord of hosted it,” Martin writes in The Hedge Knight novella. Lord Ashford’s tourney is designed around the celebration of his daughter Gwen’s 13th birthday. She is stationed at the head tent of the tourney, reigning as The Queen of Love and Beauty. Five knights wearing her favor (a strip of orange silk) have been chosen to “defend” her as champion — those are the five knights who all get lined up together on one side of the area. Then they are faced with five “challengers.”
“Any man who could defeat one of the champions would take his place and stand as champion himself, until such a time as another challenger unseated him,” the book says. “At the end of three days of jousting, the five who remained would determine whether the fair maid retained the crown of Love and Beauty, or whether another would wear it in her place.”
Dunk thinks to himself that he only needs one victory in the joust, and he would be able to say he was “one of the champions of Ashford Meadow, if only for an hour.”
According to the books’ version of events, the five starting champions in this tourney are two of Lord Ashford’s sons (Androw and Robert), Lord Leo Tyrell, Ser Humfrey Harding from the Vale, and Prince Valarr Targaryen (the eldest son of Prince Baelor, the senior-most Targaryen present at this tournament). The first day of the tourney sees at least 14 challenging knights who take turns in the various rounds of jousting. Dunk intends to enter as soon as he has armor, taking his chances against whoever stands as a champion by then.
So what was up with Dunk joining Lord Lyonel’s tug ‘o war team? There’s no mention in the book of that being an official tournament game at Ashford Meadows. Instead it appears to be a fun scene invented for the show as a way for the TV audience to enjoy a bit of low-stakes action that still provides emotional outlet and physical bonding for the men of the camp.
Did Ser Arlan have a gigantic penis in the book and that’s why the episode opened with full-frontal nudity? Nope, that salacious detail was brought vividly to life just for the likes of your eyeballs, HBO watcher. Like the unexpected blast of diarrhea in last week’s episode opening, this seems to be a choice driven by humor and perhaps a bit of the team taking advantage being on cable. And of course, the visual paired with Dunk’s words is serving to show how Dunk is lying-by-omission while describing Ser Arlan’s most memorable qualities and accomplishments. So, now I must ask myself a question: How will the show succeed in getting me to instinctively cover my mouth in surprise, followed with a cartoonish chuckle, at the start of next week’s episode? Let’s wait and find out together.
Kim Renfro is the author of The Unofficial Guide to Game of Thrones and former TV critic and correspondent for Insider. She works in Los Angeles as a stay-at-home-mom, writer, and podcaster.